


Transformice: The Journal

by Simpleasthat



Category: Transformice
Genre: Gen, Melibellule, Tigrounette, Transformice - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-31
Updated: 2013-12-31
Packaged: 2018-01-06 21:25:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 68,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1111694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Simpleasthat/pseuds/Simpleasthat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A lone mouse finds himself transported from his homeland and taken to a new realm. The newcomer must learn the rules of the mysterious land the inhabitants call "Transformice" and ascend the ranks to become a Regular of the Council. However, his plans change course once he realizes the Council's darker intentions. With his newfound group of friends, the mouse must learn to fight and survive against a full-fledged war against the Council to secure his freedom.</p><p>Story initially strongly based, then gradually more loosely based on the online flash game Transformice. Thus, this is a caution for readers not familiar with the game Transformice; you may be confused with certain concepts in the beginning chapters especially, although confusion may be prevalent throughout the novella.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**1**

This world is all strange to me. Everywhere, I see blue. Where am I? I do not know of anything about me; my name, my place, and whether or not I have become a subject in some kind of heaven or hell.

After a moment, I register faint objects in the distance. I am standing on a kind of surface that looks like wood, but after closer inspection I notice that it is only a polished floor that is painted the color of wood. Out across me, everywhere, there are other platforms much like the one I am standing on. What am I supposed to do? I think. Am I here as a prisoner? Am I trapped here?

Then, I see a yellow haze not far from me. It is only on the third platform across from me. I confirm my suspicions and realize that it is in fact, a piece of cheese. My stomach growls. Breakfast. I see that it's swiss cheese, my favorite kind.

After nibbling on a piece of cheese, I decide to explore this strange place. Who knows? Maybe this place is for the better. There may even be an easy way out that I didn't know.

However, before I could take any more steps, a loud sound like thunder erupted from behind me. Frozen in fear, I looked up to see a dark cloud form above me. I could only pray and hope. For a terrifying five minutes I ran, adrenaline high, leaping from platform to platform to escape the dangerous cloud.  
Then, as quickly as the cloud had come, it has gone. In its place, a small piece of paper was falling towards me. I quickly scanned the paper and read:

_When you are here, you're not to worry._  
This is only a test of will and endurance.  
You can leave this strange place if you  
can get all titles, old or new.  
Since that is an impossibility,  
you should be generous for us to be  
Kind enough to have three titles  
that you must get to escape this tire.  
The Reaper which you would acquire first,  
Then Quick Silver which you may get if good,  
And last but not least the title of honor,  
of saving mice, it's Shamarvelous.  
These three titles are the only way  
to get your honor and choose to go or stay.  
So without further ado, we wish you luck  
and learn the ways of this land. Don't get stuck! 

Right then and there, I had no idea what the note was talking about only that I could be free if I tried really hard at something, so I stuck it in my small pouch and kept traveling the platforms.  
Then, I saw a relieving sight. A mousehole! The hole that could be my escape! With new happiness I surged through the mousehole, relieved and relaxed.

Of course, I was dead wrong.

I was then taken again, with the same feeling I had when I had walked into this strange world through a beautiful, but mysterious pearl.

When I landed, again in a similar place like before, I wasn't alone. There were mice everywhere.  
I saw many mice, around thirty, rushing about seemingly to pick up a cheese from the pile in the distance, then racing back to a mousehole. I didn't want to go back there again, all right.

However, I wasn't scared. I was in fact just the opposite. I had a determined look on my face. I could do this. Whatever the titles were in the note said, I would get them. As simple as that.

That sentence then ignited a spark in my brain. That was exactly what my name would be. It was like a spirit had destined this to be my name. Simpleasthat.

**2**

This is not the writer of the journal. It is quite hard to describe what I am. I guess you may describe me as an all-knowing entity, like an omniscient narrator. For all things that you may not know, I am here to help you.

In fact, I will tell you that there are two entities of the name Simpleasthat. The Simpleasthat of the past is the mouse writing this journal, but the Simpleasthat of the present is quite different from the past. I have much more knowledge. More techniques. However, our separate lives of past and present are untouchable. They live separately and in the past. If you do not quite understand, do not worry. This is normal, and usually only mice like me can truly understand. For now, I shall go over what is going on and nothing more.

The world that I am talking about is the blue dimension of Transformice. It is a randomized world of many places. Some are official and safe, and some are dangerous and not recommended that you venture into.

The titles that Simple had pored over are the given names that have been bestowed onto you through destiny. All newcomers in Transformice will be given a title, which is a little mouse. By learning the ways of the land and improving, you may be awarded better, more honorable titles. So far, no one has acquired all the titles, but some mice are close. Those mice are called the Regulars, less commonly called the Outsiders.

The three titles that the past Simple has been introduced to were the three final titles before the Creators had added many more honorable titles. The easiest to get is by far The Reaper.

There! I shall say nothing more. I want you to read on, if you have found this document at all. The secrets are in reading. Find them and you will be enlightened.


	2. Learning the Ropes

**1**

I still had no idea what was going on except that I had to get out of here and that I had a weird craving for cheese, but after watching my fellow mice I slowly got an idea what was going on.

It was like a game, really. A test of endurance, agility, and will, just like the note had said. It was purely physics-based. The objective was to acquire the cheese that were in certain places in seemingly randomized areas of this strange land. In this room, I did not have to enter the mousehole to have that strange sensation of this so-called 'teleportation'; instead, the system seemed to have a mind of its own. I saw that if you finished first, you had an added bonus. This whole thing seemed like a game, but I perfectly well knew that it wasn't a game to me. This was, as they say, a matter of life or death.

It seemed that on a certain level, there was always usually a leader. The Runners called the leader a Shaman. Some shamans were very unexperienced that you could see at a first glance. Some Shamans, on the other hand, were very experienced and helped the Runners everywhere. And yet some were simply very mean and seemed that he wanted to make everybody take a wet bath, which the Runners called Trolls. I probably didn't tell you that I'm afraid of heights but I perfectly well realized that if I misstepped anywhere I would fall into the cold water below me. Fortunately I knew how to swim.

These titles also became a familiarity. The Runners were always talking about titles. It didn't take long until I realized that I myself had a title. The name came to me; I was but a Little Mouse. 

"Don't worry, Simple," one helpful Runner said. "You won't be a Little Mouse for long."  
"How can I have more titles?" I asked curiously.  
"Well, you just do stuff like getting cheese and you slowly get new titles."  
"Do you know a title called The Reaper by any chance?"  
"Whoa, little mouse, take it easy. Start with the basics. Learn to Wall Jump or something. Even I don't have The Reaper yet," the mouse exclaimed.

Great. Even this mouse that knows many, many things but doesn't have the title the note would say would be easiest to get.

Soon, though, a short while before I slowly decided to get some cheese, I felt a name brush on my mind. What was it? I probed my small mouse brain, trying to pick something up. Then it appeared to me, and I smiled, the first smile since I came to this strange world. 

The name was Greedy Mouse.

 

**1, Notes**

The present form is here now. You probably guessed the new terms, labeled in capitals. But in case you didn't know...

The Creators are able to be guessed. They are Melibellule and Tigrounette.  
The Runners are just a term for the mice that are in a room, and aren't clueless people like my past.  
Dying would not fit the story, so you probably noticed that you go up in bubbles when you're out of the map. So, water is used instead. It fits the story better, no?  
The present form of Simpleasthat actually has The Reaper and Quick Silver, but the present Simple does not have Shamarvelous.  
You can make assumptions on what Shamans and Trolls are.  
Last but not least, this in fact is a game to us. Not to the story Simpleasthat, however.

**2**

So on and on I played the maps, learned the ropes slowly, learning one small nitpick after another. I soon learned the air jump, the technique that soon became the most common thing in my arsenal of jumps and moves. I got familiar with the levels, became aware of how the maps worked. The Runners called all the dangerous maps Badlands. They were- many Badlands consisted of a very crazy structure that I could not jump and many had this peculiar red wood that the Runners call lava wood. I soon learned to avoid this, for it was deadly. However, I learned that surviving this deathly trap was possible, and the most skilled Runners could accomplish this and even use this lava wood to their advantage.

Soon enough, I had an advantage one level. A dangerous lava trap had sent many mice out, but fate had made me survive. Good thing, also- I didn't like water at all. I was just in the lead, with half of the area cleared and we were on a straightaway to the mousehole. There were three Runners behind me, and I knew they desperately wanted to beat me. I felt a surge of adrenaline as I pushed myself harder than I had ever gone before. I made the final leap...

...and the title appeared in front of me as clear as crystal. A Fast Mouse. It was my first step in getting out of this dumb mess.

"Good job," my friend Pompomball told me. "It's not much, but it'll get you started on the road to becoming a Regular here."  
"Thanks," I replied back. She was the first friend I had made in this strange place. Undoubtedly, there would be more friends and also enemies to come. But that could be handled. All of that was minor compared to my situation. The Runners had no idea what predicament I was in. But they would, soon. And I would improve as well. Sooner than I thought.

**3**

I faced the wooden wall. It was around 10 times my size, and I was a bit afraid. The Runners told me I needed to learn this sooner or later, what the Regulars had called Wall Jumping. I am frequently lost on all the conversations on the forms of Jumping; Wall Jumping, Air Jumping, Corner Jumping, and even something they call Butt Jumping. I knew that if I wanted to get more of these titles the note and the Runners were talking about, I needed to nail this down pat. I knew it would take a long time to master.

Throughunity jogged by me. "You ready?"  
"I guess so," I replied.  
"This is going to be challenging. You aren't going to get it in the first tries or so. But you will soon."  
"I understand. So... can we start?"

Unity replied by showing me how it was done. I marveled as he graciously clung onto the wall, then seemed to fly up and keep climbing up as if he were as light as a feather. It was a remarkable sight. However, I still didn't know how it was done.

"The main thing is," Unity said, "To grab onto the wood with your paws, then spring out and jump up to grab the walls again. If you're too slow or fast, you might slip and fall. The timing has to be just right."

He was right. I failed many, many times before Unity decided to bring me over to a different, stickier wood he called Chocolate Wood. "Practice on this first," he said in dismay.

Unlike the normal wood, this wood had more spots to put my paws on, and it was much easier to climb the wall. After about an hour of mastering this, Unity said, "I think you're ready to go back on the normal wall. I have to go over to somewhere else soon. I'd like to see you nail this, but instead I'm bringing over someone else. You want anyone in particular...?"  
"Pompom," I said without hesitation.

She wasn't overly talkative like the other mice, but she wasn't mute either. Even though I failed, she wasn't disappointed. Instead, she gave me tips, like how early I was clinging on and how I had to wait a bit before I could grab the wall.

Then, something happened. It was a normal attempt, nothing special, when I felt a strange surge of power and energy fill me. It was a warm sensation, almost like I was floating. That's when I knew that this time, I would nail this. 

Without a misstep, I ran towards the wall. With a bounding leap higher than I'd ever gone before, I gripped the wall, jumped in a spiral, arcing higher and higher, losing all touch and feel and simply going on, until finally I discovered that I had no more wood to jump on. I was at the top of the wall. 

I took a small glance downward to Pompomball. Her eyes were big, her face registering shock and admiration at the same time. 

"How was that?" I called back casually.   
After a short pause, she replied back with a smile, "Not too bad."


	3. Getting Noticed

**1**

Slowly but surely, with my refined Wall Jump in my arsenal, I began to accumulate cheese more often, get more Runners as my friends, and even nail the occasional first. Although I was getting used to how this place the Runners called Transformice worked, I was still unexperienced and there were many Runners that were easily better than me.

The Regulars said that the Council of Mice and the Creators called this place Transformice, with 7 parallel dimensions independent to one another. The Council of Mice were the greatest of the Regulars, the ultimate, elite Runners. Many called themselves the Outsiders, forming a solid pack of mice that only the greatest could enter. There were other packs as well, but no pack could hold a candle to the Outsiders. 

I slowly collected new titles. I became an Agile Mouse, then an Activist and Unionized Mouse. I could sense the other Runners' titles as well; some of the Regulars already had The Reaper and some even had Quick Silver. During the entire course of my stay in Transformice, I only sensed one Regular that owned the fabled Shamarvelous. 

I encountered many 'maps'. The Runners called the numerical maps that you could identify by a stamp in the wood Vanilla areas. The earliest Regulars told me that they were the first maps in the existence of this world before you could use a special form of cheese, called Magik, to create new areas. Usually, though, the attempts at new worlds were discarded and classified as the Badlands. Some, however, escaped the mistreatment and were created into the Permanents, areas that could never be deleted by the Council. 

One map was interesting- as I was running, I noticed that the ground underneath me was falling! Quickly, I discovered that if I didn't move fast enough I would fall into the water below. So, quickly, I raced against time to keep going higher and higher, with renewed adrenaline pumping through my veins. I looked ahead of me and saw no mice. Behind me there were two- their names I do not remember. Soon, however, they too fell trap into the waters and swam to safety. 

I, however, had other plans. I was kept dry only by the fact that I did not want to give up and that I hated water. So, I took the final jump out of the falling platforms and eventually landed on the final platform. It did not move, and the cheese and mousehole was conveniently together, just waiting for me to collect. 

"How'd I do?" I called out to the other island, crowded with wet mice.   
"Horrible," one Runner sneered. Another mouse pushed him off the platform, dunking him in the water again. "Hey!"  
"Not bad," the mouse who pushed the jacka*s Runner said. "To beat the Test of Froi is a challenge."

I knew that I was getting known. I didn't want to, but I had no choice.

**1, Notes**

Transformice is a game created by Melibellule and Tigrounette (the Creators). The Council of Mice are all the in-game moderators that are in the Top 1k in the rankings. Some mice are not runners, but are part of the Council simply because they were the best of the best, the Top 100 mice. Many of them are found in the tribe Outsiders, although many are not. 

The 7 dimensions are just the 7 servers- Kong, EN1, EN2, French, Russian, BR1, and BR2.   
The Permanents are simply the Permanent maps, identified with a cheese symbol at the top-left corner.

The highlight map described by the past Simpleasthat is the Froi map, the collapsing tower map. Usually, many mice die at the beginning simply because of the excess lag, but some pros escape and go on to finish.

('13 Notes: This map is most likely discontinued. At the time of this writing, this was a popular racing map. In addition, the old server system is now obsolete. There are no longer seven 'servers.' -JK)

**2**

I had experimented with this leader thing the Runners had called Shamaning before, but I wasn't very good at it. However, the final title Shamarvelous required me to have a solid understanding of being a shaman, so I asked my friend Chesseo to help me.

"Well, first off, we need to start with how to conjure objects. It isn't as easy as you think," Chess said. I agreed- I didn't see how you could possibly conjure things out of thin air. When I had experimented alone in another, remote Room, the best thing I could conjure was a wisp of a directional arrow.

"How do you make such big things appear?" I said.  
"The more cheese you collect, the more Magik that you accumulate in you," he replied. "That is why newcoming mice cannot perform well as a shaman. If you can learn to channel your Magik into objects, you can summon even the greatest of beasts."  
"I think I understand," I said, "But I still don't know how to channel Magik."  
He replied to this by giving me a lecture on how to concentrate on the center of my being, imagining the Magik flowing through me, then thinking of an object being put in a particular place. 

I concentrated, even took a big breath. I felt relaxed. Then I felt the Magik coming up from inside of me. I felt its power course through my veins. I thought of the simplest thing I could think of, an arrow, and directed the Magik over Chesseo's head. I held it there for a few seconds, aiming, and then I let the Magik rush out from me. 

The arrow appeared, not a ghost this time, over Chesseo's head. It was as clear as crystal. I was happy, but Chesseo wasn't rejoicing. "Nice work," he simply said. "Your first object conjured."

"Why aren't you all that happy?" I asked.  
"Well, I am happy that you're beginning to see how this works, but I still don't know how you'd fare with more... difficult objects. Like a large crate, for instance. Can you direct that object beside me?"  
"I'll try..."

Once again, I relaxed and felt the Magik running through me. This time, instead of an arrow, I focused on a large crate. I directed the energy, slowly, towards Chess. However, I felt a tug inside of my body. As I tried to create the crate, the inside of my body would not allow the crate to form. What was happening? I tried again with no luck. I concentrated again, with all the force I could muster. I finally got it to near Chesseo, and was about to release the crate. But then, a sharp pain erupted on my back. I felt the floor spin, my eyes go black, and the world become still.

I awoke to find Chesseo and another mouse shaking me. "You all right?" Chess asked.  
"Yeah, I think. What happened?"  
"This is exactly what I feared. The crate's energy required was too much for the limited Magik that was inside of you, and you couldn't conjure the object so you blacked out. These are dangerous, Simpleasthat. I'm sorry that I ever suggested the idea. If you go too much beyond your limits of Shamaning, you can outwork yourself and even die."  
The other mouse spoke up. "Luckily, a single large crate only exceeded a more than a bit past your Magik levels so you only suffered a minor blackout."  
"Who are you?" I asked.  
His reply startled me. "I am a Mouse of the Council. You may refer to me as Reddit."  
I opened my eyes. A member of the Council! I nodded my head in thanks. Then, as quickly as Reddit had arrived, he vanished without a trace, leaving no evidence that he was there. Was it all a dream?

Apparently not. "Council Regulars can do that," Chess explained.  
"I want to try again," I replied quickly.  
After a startling look, Chess said, "Are you crazy? You've gotta rest."  
"I want to try again," I repeated. I was going to do this, no matter what.  
The determination in my eyes seemed to make Chesseo acknowledge my statement. "Come here, then."

Again, I had myself center my weight and concentrate on the Magik levels running through me. I quickly thought of a large crate and felt its trace. 

Then, a peculiar thing happened. It was like the feeling I had when I learned the Wall Jump: it seemed as if my Magik levels had been given an extra-power boost. It couldn't be explained; it was all so mysterious. Chesseo seemed to notice this change and smiled. "Feeling the energy?"  
"Yeah," I exclaimed. The feeling was amazing.  
"I know you can do this," Chesseo said. "I know you can. Go!"

Without a second to spare, a swiftly directed the crate to Chesseo with ease. I released the Magik, much smoother now, and looked at a slightly surprised Chesseo to see the crate materialize next to him. I could see him starting to say something, but I wanted to go further.

Next, I summoned a stabilizer, what the Runners call Anchors. This would, I hope, make the crate immobile. Then, I quickly summoned another large crate and stabilized it as well. I then summoned two diagonal planks, all in a blur. I was moving fast. I almost had no idea what I was doing, just conjuring objects once beyond my ability. It was an exhilarating feeling.  
After I summoned the planks, I put a final stabilizer where the two planks met. I felt the power I had slip away as I stepped back to admire my work. 

To put it basically, I had built a house, with poor Chesseo trapped inside it. Chesseo reeled back in awe. He looked at me.   
"You really are special," he said. I replied with a small smile and a curt nod.  
"What should I do now?" I asked.  
"Get me out of here," he replied in annoyance. "A balloon will do. And after that, let's go back to the Mainland. We've got some live practicing to do."

**2, Notes**

Reddit is a moderator of Transformice. His actual name is Redditguy.   
Magik is the essence of becoming a Shaman. It is what makes the Shaman feature qualities like blue stripes. Magik only occurs like Simpleasthat experienced if a mouse is selected to be shaman. Other than that, you cannot conjure objects. 

Magik was briefly discussed in the previous chapter or so, when the Past Simple told us that Magik can be used to create Badlands.  
Simpleasthat created a basic house with slanted sides so that the mice are trapped on the inside.

The Mainland is simply the rooms that have populated mice.

**3**

I first came across the term 'tribe' when I overheard some of the regulars talking about the so-called Outsiders, the elite group of mice. I learned that a tribe could be made by anybody, but it took a lot of time and skill to get your own tribe to be the very best. I had too many times heard stories of my fellow Runners attempting to create their own pack of mice but not succeeding. 

While I was Running, I came across many new titles. I have been in the world of Transformice for close to three weeks now, nearing a month, and many titles have come and gone. I recently celebrated my 500th cheese with a Mouse on Strike. I neared 50 firsts. My newfound Shaman skills earned me basic Shaman titles as well, like Accomplished Shaman. I came across more mice that had all original titles including Shamarvelous. These were the pure Regulars. Many mice called them Mice of Honor.

I knew that creating my own tribe would probably fail, but like many other mice I did not give up hope. I was still not that experienced in this world, but I was getting used to it. If I put my mind to it, I thought, I could possibly break the Top 100 tribes... a mouse could dream. That day, I devised an idea.

I got all of my friends: Pompomball, Throughunity, Chesseo, Vladsgirl, Geoangle, Smoof, Keithhh, Perrydauni, and others. I called them to a meeting in a private room.

"What's this about?" Keith asked.  
"Go ask Simple," Chesseo said. "He's the person that brought us here."  
"If you just calm down for a second, I'll explain why I brought you here," I replied. "Everybody gather 'round."  
"This better be good," Perry said.

After a brief moment of silence, I started. "I wanted to start a tribe with you people."  
"What?!" Vladsgirl exclaimed. "We can't just start a tribe like this."  
"I agree," Tehdragon said.   
"Shush," I pleaded. "Right now, just these mice alone aren't enough to go far in the rankings. But, if we put our minds to it, the 10 mice we have right now can multiply into a great tribe. All I need is your loyalty to this tribe, no matter how bad it's going. That's the only way we can come through."  
A minute passed. Two. Then Pompomball broke the silence.

"If we're going to make a pack, then we must try to the best of our ability. If we're gonna form a tribe, then a tribe we will get. I'm in," she said.  
Keith nodded. "Right now, it isn't much, but we can get far. I put my trust in you."  
Unity seconded this notion. So did Geo and Smoof. Then Perry and the others soon agreed to form the tribe.

"All right, we're going to make the tribe," Geoangle said. "But what are we going to call it?"  
"Make it a cool name, like Inferno," Smoof said. "Or Fabled Mice."  
"How's Hope? We're searching for a lot of hope right now," Unity said.

I, however, had other ideas.

"I had idea in my head that I've been pondering over. How did you guys get to Transformice in the first place?" I asked. I was curious and I had never bothered.

"Well, I was living somewhere else when I found an orb as small as a marble," Pom said. "But when I picked it up, it changed and became bigger and bigger. I can't remember it, but soon it seemed like I was floating. Then everything went black, and a moment later I found myself here. This place was mysterious, but then I found a note.   
"The note said that I needed three titles. I can't remember the note exactly, but they were the three original titles... you know, what the Honors have. So I Ran and vowed to get out of this place. I never did." She ended with a dramatic cold voice.

The others seemed to have similar stories. Some ended on a happy note, some sad. All of them were along the lines of what Pom and I said.

"Then let me ask you another question. Do you want to get out of here? Do you think this place is unfair?" I asked. Everyone immediately nodded their heads and murmurs of "Yes".

"Then I hereby name this tribe Rebellion, in the name of the cause we are here for. To escape this godforsaken place and get back our lives again!" I declare.

Whoops. Whistles. Claps. Rebellion had begun.


	4. The Pride of Your Power

**1**

I noticed that I was slowly getting better. I hit near 75 firsts and had close to 800 or so cheese collected now. People started noticing me. I made more new friends and a couple of enemies as well. I couldn't help that- for every friend you get there will be an enemy. That's a fact.

Rebellion actually wasn't going too bad. We were recruiting some more mice that had similar stories to us and supported our cause. The Regulars didn't seem interested in joining, and they actually started to dislike us. Suit themselves.   
It all seemed like a game. We were just thrown in here and left to fend for ourselves in this prison. Why would the Creators do this to us? Did the Council have a part in this?

Aside from these worries, I was feeling good. Things were looking up. This positive energy caused me to get a bit cocky and try some new things.   
Some of those things were very, very stupid.

I heard of the Bootcamp Area a while back, and I saw those mice who returned from there soaking wet and not at all happy.   
"It's more than hard there," Keith told me. "It's near impossible."  
"Then what's the point of the BC Area?"  
"It's more like a training center to hone your skills. It's only for pure Regulars, although everyone can try Bootcamp out. Be prepared to get wet, though," he warned. 

I was feeling great that day. So what if I got dunked a few times? I'd go over there. I'd show them. I sort of learned what the Regulars called Corner Jumping. It was a bit hard, and I didn't nail it every time, but sometimes I executed it perfectly. I just needed a little bit of luck. With my Magik in check, I used its energy, guided its force to the Bootcamp Area... and vanished.  
A while later, I appeared again in BC.

It turns out I needed much more luck than I thought.

The first thing I saw was that there wasn't even that many platforms to get a grip on. In fact, there were only extremely hard-looking obstacles. Far, far in the distance, I saw the cheese. The hole stood a bit lower than I was right now. I could see that I would fail. A lot.   
Under me, immediately there was a malicious-looking corner jump. I took my chances, jumped for the hell of it...  
...and completely missed the tiny block, and falling into the sea below. Bleh. Did I tell you how much I hate water?

A few more soaked attempts followed until I finally got the speed boost I needed from the ice block. I landed hard onto the far wall. Ouch.   
Right below me was a tiny block of chocolate wood. It seemed as if it was a thin pole with a chocolate block hanging at the tip. I've seen Regulars do what they called Cinturon, commonly called the Turnaround. It was crazy hard, at least to me. You had to fall, air jump, and land on the other side with perfect accuracy. 

I decided that I'd concentrate the hardest I'd ever did. I started falling slowly on the chocolate. I neared the end of the tip. Was I going to nail this? Could I accomplish this maneuver?  
I let go of the chocolate. I airjumped, but a second too late. I made a last grasp at the other side, but I was too low in elevation. I began falling again. Ack!

I fell, again, into the water. After about the umpteenth time getting soaked and occasionally failing on the Turnaround, I decided it was useless. I rarely got on the Chocolate wood, and even that was just the beginning of this hell maze. I decided I wasn't Regular-level yet. I realized the pride of my power and how it could lead to my own demise. I learned to never try things that I knew I couldn't do yet again. 

Lesson learned.

**2**

Aside from Bootcamp, there was one other enchanted room that drove me crazy, and that was Racing. My pride had given me consequences yet again.  
Racing had all Regulars that were built for speed, and the occasional curious Runner that ran at a much pokier pace. It was the best of the best in that room, and I never wanted to go back there again. Not once did I ever score a first in that room, and I probably never will.

Racing had an Enchant over it. Bootcamp did too, but BC had a weaker Enchanting than Racing. The Racing Enchant allowed the sole areas in Racing to be just areas built for- well, racing. It didn't have any Badlands, or any Shaman Areas. These were all strictly skill levels. Which is one of the reasons why I never won- I wasn't that skilled compared to the other mice that mostly had Quick Silver.

One map, though, was close. I was side-to-side against one Regular. He gave me the evil eye, and I looked at him with a smirk. I guess the Reg thought this to be insulting, and with the hole right in my sight he rammed my side. Hard. I tumbled and fell while he gave a malicious laugh and then continued to finish- first.  
Regulars play hard, and they play serious.

I decided that Racing, Bootcamp, or any other thing wouldn't fit me. I decided on a plan- I'd keep working hard, training, and honing my skills. I'd get the Reaper. Then, I'd try Bootcamp or Racing some more times again, and then in a while I might get Quick Silver. It was a long plan, that would take many months, and I'd have to work hard. But I guess that's the price you pay for freedom. 

Which reminds me- I'm going to go check out Rebellion right now and see what it's up to.

**3**

Rebellion was doing better than ever. Our tribe was now twice as big as it had first started. Most of the new members provided stories much similar to Pom and I, where they had come here through some object or came here through a small opening in a nearby wall. It seemed that many Runners were knowing that the tribe was growing, and it wouldn't be some hopeless attempt at greatness. We accepted everyone, regardless of skill. This was not a tribe for statistics, it was a tribe for a cause. It so happened that we broke into the Top 150 the other day, which calls for a good celebration.

However, it seemed that most of the elite Regulars and the Council didn't favor as much upon us. In fact, they started being more watchful toward us, giving us the evil eye. I wonder why they were starting to dislike us, but at the time it was not a serious matter. We went on with our cause and our celebration. We had the freedom of assembly in our hands. 

I didn't stop vying for that first title, however. I was well over 1,000 cheese now and I had just gotten my very first milestone in firsts, a Pirate Mouse. I couldn't have been more happy. I got most of my friends to join the celebrations with me. It was a happy couple of weeks. In the back of my head, however, I couldn't get that image of those Regulars giving us that ominous, evil eye.

I thought back to when I had just landed in this strange place, still a strange place to me even now. There were a plethora of things I had not yet learned, but at the moment I had achieved many things. I was not a new mouse anymore. I had almost gotten used to this place, the world of Transformice. I had worked hard, and in the end I will earn freedom. I was sure of it. 

But for now, many obstacles would block my way. But obstacles can always be taken down, and new roads can always be made. When one way is closed, there will be another. I can't do a Bootcamp to save my life- so what? I can always practice, and I know in my heart that one day, I will finish that very map I had so much trouble and energy on flawlessly. I've never gotten one first in the Racing Area- and who says you have to? I'll just hone my skills. There is no embarrassment in not being able to do new things, I thought. 

I had learned many lessons from the power of my pride, and I'd improved greatly from it. I was in a sweet period of my time here in this world where there were no problems and everything was going smoothly. A good tribe, good statistics, and a great milestone in my firsts. What could go wrong?

A lot could, I realized. And little did I know that someday, a bit sooner than I thought, things would go badly. Very badly. 

But now, I had to live in the present. And with that, I went over to the Racing Room again. A mouse can always dream.


	5. A Growing Hope

**1**

A few weeks later, I had about 1,500 cheese and I had close to one-forty firsts. Everything was going smoothly, and we welcomed some new members into Rebellion. We saw our ranking go up to 92- we were doing great! 

Chesseo was one of the brains in the tribe. There were many intelligent mice, like Geo and Vlad- they were experts at figuring out calculations. They came up with new ways to finish your Run faster- I think I shaved off two or three seconds of my initial time than if Geo and Vlad didn’t come up with shortcuts. But nobody could hold a candle to Chess. He could solve problems with ways that you could have never imagined.

One day, Chess gave me a short lesson to get a feel for what was around me and know this world a little better.

“There are seven dimensions, as you’ve probably heard, right?” he asked me.  
“Yeah.”  
“Well, so far you’ve never been to any other dimension except for this one.”  
“Right again.”  
“I’m going to show you how to switch dimensions. It’s actually pretty easy, but right now that’s not what I’m going to get into today.”  
You think everything’s easy, I thought in my head. But I didn’t say anything and let him continue.

“Today, we’ll have a little geography lesson. What area are you in right now?”  
“Uh… the Mainland?” I guessed.  
“Correct! Now, what other areas are there?”   
“Hmm… well, there’s Bootcamp, which is a pain… Vanilla… Racing… and what else is there? Oh, and Shamaning,” I replied.  
“You nailed all of them. And there’s the Badlands, don’t forget.”  
“Yeah.”  
“They’re all separate from one another, sort of like islands. You know how to teleport…?”  
“Sort of, but yeah. It’s a bit tricky but I can usually get it.”  
“That’s great! Now, those are probably all the known areas we have. Some of the great thinkers among us Runners have predicted that outside our world, there’s gotta be more areas or land out there than just this group of areas.

“You can only teleport to the areas we just said… do you know why?” he asked me.  
I replied honestly. “I have no idea.”  
“I thought so. For a long time, we had no idea either. But then, we did some experiments without the Council knowing… they might get too suspicious.” He spoke in a hushed whisper now. 

He continued, “If you try to go beyond what you can teleport to, your Magik doesn’t allow it and you can’t go. It’s like some kind of force field,” he said.  
“Maybe it is a force field…”  
“You’re sort of right,” he replied. “We did many teleporting tests throughout the entire area we live on right now, and we’ve mapped out the ‘boundary line’ that we can’t go to. 

“It doesn’t have a specific, clear shape, and there are still places we haven’t the time to map yet, but it’s generally in the shape of a rectangle. We call it the Boundary,” he finished. “This boundary only adds to the theory that we’re all…”  
“Being kept here on purpose,” I blurted. I checked myself quickly then, and gave myself a hard kick. Quiet, Simple! I whispered what I said next. “That we’re trapped here.”

“Exactly,” Chess told me enthusiastically. “And right now, nobody can get outside that boundary. We’re secretly working out a way to be free. So far, the only people with the Honor titles belong to the elite Regulars, or they belong to the Council. Not one normal mouse is even close to getting that last Honor title.  
“But we’ve been speculating,” Chess said. He spoke more uneasily now. “There is a prediction, a prophecy if you will. So far, no one can go outside the Boundary. But one day, we believe that a mouse will come. Special, learning faster than anyone else. That mouse will have the power one day to go outside the Boundary and he- or she- will set us free.” He spoke of this with uncertainty, and I knew why. It was farfetched, but it was a hope they were sticking on to. They wouldn’t lose hope.

“Whatever happens, I sure hope that I’ll be around by then to get free,” I said with a laugh.   
“Same here,” Chess told me with a final smile. 

So there was that little lesson and chat on the lay of this land. I didn’t get some things, but I figured I’d get everything when the time came. So far, with me so close to the first title on that mysterious note, I decided to channel all my efforts onto earning that title- The Reaper. 

But before I left for the inner Mainland, I witnessed something peculiar. A Council mouse appeared before us- he came into the room without any trace. He just- appeared. Before we could say a type of cheese he raised his powerful hands and sent a beam of light towards the mouse in our area, in the distance. The beam hit that mouse…  
…and then she was gone. What had happened?  
“I hereby Banish this mouse for blasphemy against the Council and the Creator’s Law,” the Member announced. “Anyone who does not wish to be Banished, do not follow.” And then he was gone, without any trace of Magik in his place. 

“What the hell was that?” I asked Pom.   
“By the way that Member used the word Banish, I think he meant that the mouse he beamed went to… the Holding. In the Badlands,” she said. “I’ve heard stories of that place- no food or water. It’s hell in there. You do not want to go there at all.”  
Ugh. Protesting rebellion just got harder. And scarier. But you know me- I wasn’t going to give up that easily. And with that, I left for the Mainland with Magik on my fingertips.

**2**

Dimensional travel was much harder than being a Shaman- I figured that Dimensional Magik was three times harder to conjure than Shaman Magik! The travel wasn't the hard part- the summoning of the Magik was. It required a huge abundance of energy, which is probably why most Runners stuck to one Dimension and didn't wander around. Just hopping to Dimension 3 and back took all the strength I had, and I was exhausted. But Geo managed to drill me through it, and I felt accomplished after I managed to get back to my home dimension in one piece.

It was growing closer and closer. The day was soon, and the day was near. I was only ten Runs away from the fabled title that I longed for so much- it had been one of my primary goals, second only to the obvious goal of freedom. I remembered the day when I got that mysterious note, and the first title it mentioned;

...that you must get to escape this tire.  
The Reaper which you would acquire first...

The Reaper. I had worked so hard for this, not stopping for rests when other mice called it a day, keep Running against my abilities. I had gone far. Long ago, I was new, confused, and worried. I still was, in a way, but now I wasn't a helpless, lost mouse anymore. I knew what I was doing, and I was very relieved. Some of my friends came over for a little party. I was so close... I knew that today, I would get the first title of three. The Honor titles.

Ten Runs left. I came upon 0, with the cheese high up on a platform high in the sky. Fortunately there was a good shaman, and I acquired third.  
Nine Runs left. A Badland level, with Lava everywhere. Needless to say, it was not the most pleasant area you could go to. I was soaking wet along with the others.

Still nine Runs left. A quick and easy Vanilla 2. The art of Wall Jumping has not lost me.  
And down the runs went- one, two, three, four runs. An unlucky map, another Run finished. Soon I had three to go. Excitement was building. I was getting nervous, and all the other Runners seemed to know of my quest for this title.

Three Runs. I wanted this title so badly. It was a painful longing, a growing hope inside of me. Would I reach the goal?

Two Runs. I was so close, yet so far. I had many Running left to do- I was getting tired. But I wouldn't give up, of course, with me so close to my goal.

One Run. Everybody was alongside me now, and this was the map. It was a familiar sight- Froi's challenge! Ah, would I make it?  
But a feeling inside me told me to lose all doubt. This was all you, my brain told me. Nothing can stop you now. Not the Shaman, not a Troll, not a Regular, nobody. This was your sweet spot- this was your map and your map only. And a calmness swept through my body as I sensed a peculiar feeling.

It was the same feeling- the same feeling when I learned to Wall Jump, and when I first learned to Shaman. It was here again, and I didn't lose the opportunity.

Out I rushed, hitting the first trampoline with so much force I thought I might have hurt my ankle. I didn't stop though, leaping onto the second platform. Up and up I went, jumping boxes and obstacles. One level down. Two levels down. Three, and one to go. Lava was in front of me, and a Regular was catching up fast behind me. Forget him- he wasn't the Runner in front, I was. One, two, three leaps! Below me, there was the cheese and hole.

I'd done it. I'd actually done it. I couldn't have been more happier at the time.

I took a deep breath. I silently thanked the heavens, and then I jumped.

**3**

I walked into the racing room with a look of determination on my face. I was a title holder now. By the time I was through with this room, I'd have a couple firsts in this room under my belt. Today, I decided to get most of my secondary goals crossed off my list, including the Bootcamp waiting for me, touring the Shaman and Vanilla rooms, and getting a few racing firsts in there as well. It so happened I came here first.

Some Runners recognized me, a pleasant surprise. We talked some, but the next area was shifting. Time to get to business.

It took some time, but eventually I was faced with a good map for me. It was simple enough, and I had looked at this area enough to know the shortcut. It required a Corner Jump, though... my Achilles' heel. But when a first was on the line, what did it matter? I was even beginning to get used to being soaked. So while the other Runners didn't bother with the shortcut they probably didn't know anyway, I took a leap of faith. Will I...

Fortunately for me, I hit the corner good enough to get some speed worked in there. The feeling of a speed boost is exhilarating- it is the feeling of racing, with the wind on your back and the speed propelling you foward. It's really an awesome feeling- I store an idea in the back of my head to think of a way to incoporate speed boosts into a Badland while I hit the other side and started inching up to that cheese.

The thinking reminded me while I was here... the first! I started, faltered, then sprinted for that cheese. Not a second later, too- the Regulars had almost caught up with me, and I'd paid by me slowing down. Ack.  
I pushed on.

The hole was a straightaway, with nothing between me and the hole. Was I kidding myself, or would I actually nail this?  
Turned out I wasn't kidding, and soon I had a satisfying first under my belt. Everything was going smoothly, and I was pretty happy. Cross that off my list.

Next, the dreaded Bootcamp. However, I had practiced many hours before this moment- I could now do the Turnaround pretty easily, and Wall Jumping wasn't a problem at all. But my Corner Jump was never accurate, and unreliable. That I had to place into luck's hands.

I arrived into BC with a familiar look- the same area as the map I had seen the very first time I'd been here! My friends told me the Regular Gastly had created this, and it was regarded as an easy area to finish. But not for me- I had a ways to go. But today was the today, and I knew that I'd finish this. 

First Corner was missed, missed a few more. Then I nailed one cleanly and flew over to the Turn. I made that, just barely- I had not been paying much attention because I was staring the cheese down. Luckily I looked back to where I was just in time to see me start to fall. I then jumped the little ice jutting out and landed on a checkpoint. 

This was the farthest I'd ever gone on this area- I wondered if I'd make it this try. Again, I'd have to put my fate into luck's hands- I want up over the slanted Chocolate and picked up the cheese. There was a huge gap between me and the other platform now- I was afraid I'd fall. But I thought to myself, If you don't try, then you have a 100% chance of failing. True... 

I cried a quick 'help me' to the Gods (in this case, whatever god controlled Bootcamp) and jumped...

Thud. Whew... that was close. I almost slipped, but I made it. I continued on, until I came upon the final obstacle. Another Corner. I groaned. Why did this have to be here!

I remembered the quote from earlier, when I have finished that gap. And then the feeling crept up on me again. The feeling of power, the adrenaline. I smiled, and didn't worry anymore. I jumped and fell, honing on that corner. 

I don't need to write what happened next- I'll leave the guessing up to you.

...and so I wore on, gaining firsts in Racing, finishing some other Bootcamp, and so on. I took a tour to the Shaman room, and decided that is wasn't quite my type so far. That'd have to come a bit later on. Vanilla wasn't bad, though. Very simple areas to Run.

I neared two thousand cheese and I had happily earned the 200 first title. Things were looking up, except for the fact that the tribe wasn't faring so well with the Regulars. They started teasing us, saying mean things. We didn't care what they said. But we knew something was up. 

The Regulars didn't like us. And I might know why, but it was only a guess. For now, we will just have to wait and see.


	6. A Time of New Dreams

**1**

The Ways, they called it. Specifically the Ways of Kerovan. They said that if you followed the six points of the Ways, you would achieve Regular skill. The catch about the Ways, however, were that some of the Ways were extremely tricky. The Runners said that the Ways were named after a famous mouse called Kerovan, who sacrificed his own life to save thousands of Runners way back in the day in a horrible Shaman accident. Rumors say that the Creators didn't like Kerovan and his ranting about how the mice should be free to live their life, so they set the 'accidental' disaster on purpose. Of course the Council convinced everyone that couldn't be possible.

I looked into a copy of the Document of the Ways that Pompomball showed me- it was how most now-regulars had started out, by reading this.

"What's this?" I asked her.  
"It's called the Document- if you want to be good, read this first. It might not be much help but it'll get you started," she replied.  
"If you say so."

The first point of the Ways was the Three Jumps- Broken down into the Air Jump, Wall Jump, and the Corner Jump. The first two jumps were easy, the last a challenge. In the Document of the Ways the Air Jump was referred to as the Aerorun, but that really wasn't important. Everyone called it the Air Jump now, so why bother changing it...

The second point was the Way of Agility. This was a concept that you should be quick and agile and not a clumsy, slow Runner- you should stay active and think quickly and creatively to achieve your goals. The Documents stated that being proficient in Bootcamp and Racing was a plus. This Way I would have to work on. I wasn't exactly what you'd call good at either of the two.

The third point... it was the Way of Experience. Basically, simply put it meant that you needed to be here for a long time, and you needed to be familiar with all of the lands and little things about this place. I guess I've been here enough times to be experienced, but to know everything- well, almost everything- I would have to wait a while longer.

The fourth Way was the Way of Magik. Magik could be used in an abundance of things, but the Document highlighted and focused on the importance of Shaman Magik than any other. It did, however, touch on other forms of Magik like Badland Magik and Dimensional Magik. But really, to be good at the fourth Way, you needed to be excellent in being a Shaman. I consider myself an alright Shaman... not bad, but not amazing either. I realized that I had many points to work on.

Going down further in the Document, the fifth Way for the Way of the Wise. It meant that you had the maturity and the intelligence to stay cool through difficult or tough times, and never letting your emotions show. It stressed on the topic of helping others and not becoming an angry mouse, to say the least. I guess I had this point down pat.

The last Way was unlike any other. It had no other description about the Way, only the title itself.

**Way of True Purpose**

I had no idea what that meant... did that mean that I needed a true purpose? I needed a reason to be here and stick to that reason? I didn't really know... the Way was vague. But I assumed that I would figure out what that meant as time went on.

\---

...and I went on and on, extending my skills. Eventually I began to be good at doing Bootcamps, and I struck the occasional first in Racing. I willed myself to train harder on using Shaman Magik and learned new, creative contraptions. I gradually began to memorize the areas and what shortcuts there were, gaining experience. Corner Jumping got slightly better, but it still is not truly accurate. Weeks and months passed, and the once dreaded effort for firsts became easy has I flew through the titles.

The Ways had helped me become a better Runner- but the one Way that I did not understand was the Way of True Purpose. I wondered what the maker of the Document had truly meant.

I walked on, with now eight hundred firsts under my belt and too many cheese to count. I would need it.

**2**

The tribe Rebellion was an up-and-coming. It actually got enough members, over fifty now, to break the Top 50 even with no requirements. People had noticed the tribe more and more, with growing curiosity. Some were for the good, but some were for the worse. The Regulars began talking about this so-called 'Rebellion' tribe, and they didn't like it one bit. But they couldn't stop us. Not now.

One mouse came in, by the name of Lindmind- we didn't really pay attention to him and welcomed him in with open arms, as we do with every mouse. We worked this tribe in harmony and peace, and for the cause we never really had any arguments. 

Until this Runner came in. He was... in our opinion, not sound in the head. He would mumble things about how wonderful oysters were and how lovely the daisies smelled today. Needless to say there were no daisies in this world, nor any recognizable living plant at all as far as I know. He would make sudden movements with his arm, darting his paw forward with a jerk as if you catch something quickly out of thin air. He could not stay in one place at a given time- he had to make some kind of movement to not 'get myself crazy'. 

One day, he went up to us as usual and began to mutter random things as usual, saying how rainbows really weren't part of the species of cheese and whatnot. But after a while he surprised us by saying, "What's the meaning of this tribe?"

"Huh? Oh! Well, um, this tribe was made to support the cause of..." I began to say, faltering for a moment. But then Unity cut in.  
"Since when did you say anything that made sense?" he asked.  
"Since now," he replied. "Can you continue ans-"  
I replied before anyone could say anything to Lind. "As I was saying, this tribe was created to support the cause of unfair treatment of the Council and the Creators. We're not a violent folk, we just think that we should be free."

He seemed to ponder this for a moment, which by the way is incredible, and then spoke again.  
"Really?"  
"Yeah."  
"Then think about this... do you actually think that this tribe is going to do anything?" Lind questioned. "What's the meaning of this?"

We were just astonished, one because he was actually speaking something other than madman speak, and second because he was speaking out like this, on this particular topic. Nevertheless, Chesseo answered.

"Nobody said that we were going to be free," he replied. "But we are certainly wishing that we were, and we're displaying this in a nonviolent way. So what's your problem?"  
"Nothing's my problem. Why are you asking?"   
"Just... go on. You're... just go." Muttering so Lind couldn't hear, he said, "That mouse is getting on my nerves."

Lind continued on. "Why are you rebelling? There is no way out! Listen! No. Way. Out. This place is endless! How are you ever going to find anything around here! All your efforts are hopeless!"  
"Shut up! Who are you to say bull like that?" a mouse, I think Dereck, yelled.   
But I silenced him. "Just let him hear what we has to say, and if I think it's a load of crap I'll allow you to say any more."

Lilmouse spoke. "We have the Prophecy to live by. One day a mouse will come, that will help us and lead us to freedom."  
"Bah! You believe in that stuff? You have no idea. The Creators, the Council, are too powerful! You'll never reach freedom if all the Runners in the Realm tried!" he cried out. "Don't you see? You'll all be stuck here. Forever!"

I took this as an opportunity to speak again. "Any banter, do say so now."  
On cue came Dereck. "We don't need to hear your crap any longer. Either shut up or get out. We don't need your kind in here."  
Everyone else said some form of "I agree."

"That settles it," I said. "I hereby expel you from this tribe. Go now."  
"You leave me no choice," Lind said. That mouse really was crazy. "But unless you can stand up and fight against the Creators, you stand no chance. Times of new dreams are coming, Rebellion. New dreams. You will fail, as there is no way to get out of this land, but you can try." And with that, Lindmind disappeared, leaving a small trail of Physical Magik with him. We were astonished.

Pliked spoke. "Well, that's the end of it. Good riddance." We never did see him again.

But the message Lind left had made an enormous dent in my thinking. Was he right? Was there truly no way out? The Prophecy sounded like a farfetched idea, escape sounded like an impossibility. Could we hope to make it? Or were we holding onto a useless thread?

But some of what he said was right. And the message was good and true. A time of new dreams were coming. A way out. Rising up against the Council and the Creators. Whether or not the dreams were real or not... well, that was up to fate to decide.

I looked up into the Mainland, and Ran for the rest of the day. By darkfall a new first title was in my possession. And only one hundred were left until the second title.

**3**

It's hard to believe that in a couple of months, I'd gotten this far. Half a year or so, to be exact... give or take a month. A while after Lind's little banter, I'd started training the Ways harder than ever. Runners considered me determined and stubborn sometimes, but they haven't seen anything yet. There was still room for improvement in me, and I wasn't going to back down from anything now. And it paid off, too. I started getting past other mice in the Ranks, which is amazing for a newcomer only a couple months into this world. Remember that many of the mice here had come here years or so ago!

Spidermouse. I was a bit into that title, at around 1070 firsts. It was a journey, a difficult one. Hardships, ups and downs, sometimes lefts and rights, too- but if you're somehow reading this right now, you knew that the only thing that mattered was whether I got the hell out of here or not. Nothing was more important to me in my mind. I had a quiet, smooth life as a mouse before I got here- I had gotten a good job in the Market selling my own-made cheese. Business was good, the family was doing nice, and I was happy until I touched that... that pearl-shaped object! I hadn't gotten a good chance to write about it earlier, but it was a mysterious object. It had a dark, hazy glow to it, intertwined by weaving colors of blue and green. The moment I had touched it, it had turned into a gleaming ball of light- I can't really explain it much. Then it began to twist and turn itself, while I could only look away in fear. I remember it like it was yesterday. Then, finally, everything was still and in its place stood a white door- but there was only that door, in the middle of thin air!

I wondered in curiosity whether to go inside or not, but eventually the door made that decision for me by slowly pulling me in. Huh? I ran, against the sudden wind, but it was no use- it was getting stronger and stronger. After an eternity of hopelessly fighting back, I became tired and gave in, letting the mysterious force suck me in to what would be my home for half a year, until now. 

Those times were horrible. I had truly believed I was going to be here to die in some sort of grueling method of death or something, but I had guessed wrong. And here I was today, just following the Note and now closing in on the second Honor. Quick Silver.

Vif Argent, the Ancients, the First Dimension called it. And I think they made it sound cooler too. But alas I was a Second Dimension mouse and I was going to stay here. With a sigh after all that thinking, I returned to the Mainland and began my final Runs for this title. It had been a while, a whirl of a ride. But it was going to end now.

\---

"Hey, Simple," Vlad asked me. "What's your count at?"

"Erm, somewhere around... let me check," I said. I made a quick probe, which is now subconsciously done now compared to taking forever the first time I got here, and replied, "One-oh-nine-four. Getting close. Really close."

"Wow! Then..."  
"Second..."  
"Honor title. Gogogo!"   
"I can try. Thanks," I said with a smile. She was a nice mouse.

My nervousness carried forth in my Running, though- those six firsts seemed like six hundred now. I kept making mistakes in my once-perfected runs, and lost to Regulars and Runners I had confidence in. I knew the reason why. 

"What's wrong?" Sourdough asked me.  
"Nervous." That was all I needed to say.  
"Happens to all of us before a title. Just... it's hard but relax. Soon you'll be happy with that, um... Silver in your hands."  
"I hope so."

I got lucky and scored two firsts. Less than five to go- Runners had subconsciously or consciously paid attention to my first count. Getting Quick Silver was a Magikal thing. They say you can't just get Quick Silver by a normal Run- it has to be Ran with some kind of Challenge and some kind of amazing finish. The Feeling, I'd dubbed it with a chuckle. The tiny adrenaline rush I'd felt so many times before. I'd need that if I was going to get that title- I'd be so nervous by the time I got to the last first that I'd need to sit down on the platform to calm myself down.

It turns out I needed to do that, after I jumped a bomb on Vanilla 7 to get exactly 1099 firsts, not one more, and not one less. Runners were getting antsy, Regulars paid small attention but did pay some of it, and some Runners I'd gotten to know very well were watching. Not cheering, but with a look of hope. 

This hadn't been all me. So many of my friends had helped me during this time- Chesseo in Magik, Pompom and Unity for the Wall Jump, Geoangle helping as well, Keith, Smoof, Sourdough, Mim, Lilmouse, and so much more... it's such a long list that I can't count the names. And they were all in Rebellion. We had helped each other though thick and thin. They helped me, I helped them, and it paid off in the long run. 

One Map, two Maps had gone by with me not standing a chance. I had to calm myself down, with the traditional 'deep breath'. Of course, it did no help whatsoever.

Then a peculiar map showed up- it was a racing map, with ice climbing on four steep slopes, the cheese in the middle and the hole on the last slope. I started out regularly, and I surprised myself by not slipping once on the first ledge.

Then the Feeling came. Racing wasn't my thing, but the Magik made me fly. Almost. 

I somehow quickly did a Corner Jump and went up the second slope quickly. I dropped down for the cheese, then started up the third. A Regular, two of them actually, were close on my tail. But I was leading. They weren't. I bounded up the slope, faster than I'd ever gone before. Soon I was going up the fourth one, quick as the wind.

The Runners and Regulars had now paid attention. They all had the thought that this was it. The last leap before the title.

I was tired. Very tired. My legs had probably teared a bit, but that was okay. The Regulars were still on me. But I jumped anyways, curling myself up into a ball, not caring for safety and hoping to deaden my impact. Tears were on my face.

Everything was silent for a moment. Was I okay? Did I make it? The silence prolonged for a while, almost teasing the watching crowd of what is to happen.

The rest, they say, is history.


	7. Present Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Note: This was a phased-out concept, but I already wrote it and was un-retconnable. You can skip this if you want, the chapter makes little sense to the general plot as a whole.

**1**

('13 Note: This is an unretconnable piece of phased out plot. You should read this chapter-section if you wish, but it won't harm your reading experience in any way. -JK)

So I suppose you have had enough of the Past Simpleasthat and his efforts for the first and second Honor title- yes... you have not heard from me for quite a while, for I have given you small notes and whatnot until we have ventured a bit into this document. But here I am now, and after this section of the document you shall hear from me any more. At last, we carry on and switch over onto the present form of Time.

I may have said before that the Time of Past and Present cannot be ruptured- that they are two parallel entities. For your own benefit and safety I had made a small lie there- Time is a gentle thing, and you can choose either to go into the Past, Present or the Coming Future... but only if you have the right materials to do so. I am here today, as that material, to guide you away from the Past, into the Present, and onward into the Future.

Time will not cease- and so the words of this document will not stay as it is. They will not change as the Present day changes- Time is a constant flow. So, at the time of this log of the Present Day, I have 2250 or so firsts and 8500 cheese, give or take one hundred cheese. Now, as Time flows, this will become inaccurate. But you can consider this as just a point in Time by then, and it will become of no matter. As I may have said much earlier in our encounter, you may not understand all of what I am telling you right now- it is perfectly normal. I do not expect you to understand everything, but more or less something in our last moments together.

At this time, I have become quite sufficient in Racing and Bootcamp, although I am still not quite good at Racing still- and Shaman Magik still needs improvement. But otherwise, in this short period of the Present, things have been going rather well, with no major mishaps or mistakes.

Rebellion is a good tribe, breaking thirty and becoming a known tribe. Of course, the Regulars do not like this at all. We will see what happens about that. 

Many of my Runners had not been through anything drastic either, and all is well. Really, the Present form is nothing to worry about at the moment.

So far, you have been exposed to the Past, the moments and things about this realm Transformice that you already know well. In fact there are so many components and tidbits to this realm that I have not begun to mention half of everything about this place. Now, you are almost finished with breezing through this short section of the Present. But I do not know just the Present- you know that I can go through Time. Each moment, each part in Time can be accessed if you have the right things to work with, and I just happen to have those very things. And I can therefore give you the future. 

But just remember, as a parting note for this time, that everything that you have discovered so far- is just the beginning. You have seen nothing yet. Trust me.

Just relax. Not to worry. For now.

**2**

If you are at all reading this document, then that is a lucky thing- I have no time to write, and the journey is a hard one. But I have just enough time to write this final, last portion- and then you are all on your own and on my basis of Time that I will give you now. I write this so that you are prepared, soon, when the time comes... when the future will come upon you and you will have to make the right choices. I bid you good luck.

As you may have obviously noticed, the tribe Rebellion is getting more and more noticed, and not necessarily in a good way. Runners support it, the majority, but the Regulars and the Council do not. So far, though, they can not do anything about it at all... it is out of their power. 

Soon, though, Rebellion will not just stay as a calm, peaceful tribe. It will grow to include most active Runners and will become what the name of the tribe is- rebellion. The Regulars will stop us. They have more power, and more freedom to do things as they wish. But soon even they will not suppress the inevitable that will and is to come.

Hah! You have learned about the Wall Jump, learned about firsts, fun things and trivial matters. You have no idea what is to come. Sooner than you think, it will come. And you must be prepared. That is why I write this journal, the final, last effort to warn you. If you are caught off-guard, and you are not prepared, you will not succeed.

The Future is a shaky thing... it is never the same thing twice. So it does not matter if I see the Future and tell you what I saw, for chances are it will be different.

I have no time! It runs out! I only have a few moments more to write the last part of this. Please, do as I said and know what to expect. There will be... a war... against the Runners and the Council... be ready!

I must go! Time! I wish you goo


	8. Tension's Peak

**1**

You could tell spirits were up ever since Lind gave his little speech to us. We never heard from him again. I wonder where he had ever gone. But that was so long ago, when I had gotten Quick Silver. Now, halfway through three thousand firsts and way too many cheese in my inventory, the time was coming.

Tensions were growing stronger and much thinner. Soon, it would become thin enough to snap, and then all hell would break loose. We had to collect cheese, and get firsts, and use Magik. Like the Creators intended. But now it was getting obvious what our intentions were, and the Council wasn't hiding what feelings they were showing. They held frequent meetings, mostly about us. Rebellion was in the Top 10, something I had never dreamed of getting to. Most Runners were now in this tribe, and it had grown to a force with more than five hundred mice. But rank didn't matter anymore.

Fights were common against anti-rebellers (who we just called Antis from now on) and rebellers, and we held miraculously non-violent debates spanning for days on the subject. The benefits, the costs, the pros and the cons. It seemed to be endless, the talks, and soon we were all confused on what would be the right choice; give in or declare freedom.

I recently found out that the Creators had closed down the Shaman Area and the Bootcamp Area. I wondered why when I realized that we used those areas to train, mostly Runners. Regulars used Racing very often. This wasn't a trivial matter now, I realized. This was the real deal. 

The inevitable was coming. We couldn't, and most definitely the Creators couldn't prolong this any longer. They had the power, but we had the large force. Antis didn't hold a candle to the Runner size. But many of our Runners were unexperienced and unqualified, while practically all the Antis were very experienced. I would have considered myself a Regular if I had all the Honor Titles. But yet I still didn't. Even if I became a Regular I would stick to the rebels.

The Realm Document stated no one could close down or disable any tribe or area unless the current Creator makes an order to do so. The Council couldn't do anything about this. But soon they could, because the Creators were not aware of the situation. 

Bootcamp and Shaman were closed. But that didn't stop us, not one bit. We began training, getting ready for what was to come. Tension was at its peak. Shaman Magik was the most important and vital skill we all had to learn- I became proficient. All the other people in Rebellion and also all rebels who weren't in Rebellion began training as well. Many of my friends had gone out alone to train by themselves. The most used object in our training was conjuring a cannon.

We'll get to the point soon where we are ready to decide, once and for all, what the hell we're doing and what's going on. What our situation was. Runners began talk of the Prophecy again. But until then, we had to just keep honing our skills, secretly and not getting caught, until that day comes.

**2**

I was doing my regular Runs in the Mainland. I had around three thousand firsts, give or take a hundred. Cheese? Can't count. Saves? Still very, very far from a Regular status. Of course I still Ran- what else was there to do? It was practically the only thing I could do now, and the Regulars forced out every Runner that was within a 100-meter radius of the Racing Area. Months, long ago, almost a year, I had Ran these very same maps with confidence and energy. Now, the look on my face was monotonous and boring. There was nothing I felt anymore except for a dull aching for the constant we were all hoping for- freedom. All of my friends had either gone to train or Ran with me, the same looks on their faces. 

We were all tired. But inside, although we were basically empty of all enthusiasm, there was still a little something left in our hearts. Nervousness, adrenaline, hope. This wasn't some farfetched joke anymore. This was serious, and this was real. Full-on.

Sometimes not in a good way. Things were going to go south, starting with the Incident.

It was nearing Down, and we were all tired. Me and my friends decided to call it a day and head for the tribe's base. All packs had a base where you went to rest, sleep, and just hang around when you had nothing better to do. They were usually along the outskirts of the Badlands, where you couldn't really be bothered. Tribeless mice had no base, so those poor mice had to make do on their own.

But as we neared the base, in the distance, I saw a black wisp lingering near our base. I did a double take, looked more carefully, but still I could not make out what it was. Reaper, our sharpest eye, couldn't make a guess. We went closer in.

Once we were a hundred meters, give or take 10 meters in, I could finally see what it was, much clearer now. I jumped to, and shouted. It was smoke! "Smoke!" I yelled. "Let's go!"

"Damn!" Son shouted. "Better hurry up!"  
"You bet!" Davy exclaimed. "I see fire!"  
I cursed under my breath and ran. I had a slight idea on who had done this or why. But I wasn't sure yet. "Come on!"

Most of the others, a few hundred, were circled around the base by the time the late party, us, got here. I groaned. The base had been burned up into flames. Everything was black, and I couldn't make out anything of use. Our home. Supplies. Possibly life. All gone. I seethed in anger.  
A small sign was posted on our base's entrance. It said:

Today, the Creator and the Council of Mice hereby declare the tribe named Rebellion dispelled and of no further use. The tribe is now hereby shut down. From the Council.

My hunch was right. Those as*holes. They were going to pay. It wasn't funny, not at all. They knew what they had done, and they'd done it intentionally. 

"You okay?" Vlad asked me.   
"I'm fine," I lied. "I'll go out to the Mainland for a minute. Tell the tribe that they can follow me if they want." I was thouroughly... angry. For the sake of language.

The Incident, we called it. We agreed that this was one of the first move in our road to rebellion. The tribe was dispelled. But who needed tribes? We'd gather our Runners up. We'd make an unofficial group, under the radar of the Rankings. 

10 or so mice followed. The rest either lingered around the base, talked in a rush, or just left for the Badlands to have a walk on their own. I realized that the mice who followed were the same mice that I had first gathered when the tribe had first started. I made a head check; Chesseo, Unity, there was Pompomball, Vlad was right behind me, Geo, Smoof, Perry, Son who wasn't in the beginning group but followed anyways, Keith, Dragon, and Ami. All here. I sighed- I was all worn out, and I felt like I was the oldest Runner in existance. The others were more or less the same as I was.

After the unspoken agreement of a long silence, I spoke. "It's been a while."  
"Yeah," Pompom said.  
"A crazy time," said Unity.

"The Council made their first move. They had purpousely shut down our tribe," I declared.   
"Those... I'll seriously beat up every one of them. Kill, probably. If I had to," Chess said. Geo made a nod.  
"They had no right," shouted Keith. Vlad told him to "whisper, idiot. They can hear us."

Perry and Dragon both decided that they should do something. They had made their move. With violence and with bad intentions. 

You've heard that if someone does something bad to you or hurts you or something like that, you shouldn't do the same. Fighting fire with fire. But this was war. Lives were on the line. We had to fight back.

"I want to make a vote," I said.   
"About what?" the others asked.  
"A vote," I replied. "On declaring independence. From the Council."  
Rushed whispers passed through our small group. 

"That'd mean that if we fail, we're all going to... die," Son said quietly. "We declared it. If we lose this battle, there's not much hope for us."  
"There hasn't been much hope anyways!" Ami said. Geo made another nod towards her.   
Pompom finished for her. "If we just sit here, things are only going to get worse now. We've crossed the line. You've seen the base. We need a plan of action, now."

After a moment's pause, I said, "I will say this once and only once. There will be no re-voting or any of that crap. Okay?" Nods. "Alright. Aye for independence. One at a time. Starting with you, Vlad."

The look on her face... she was afraid. I knew it. "You don't have to," I said calmly. "You can say no."   
But she surprised me. "Aye."

"Aye."  
"Aye again!"  
"Aye for independence."  
"Aye, screw the council."

5 votes for yes, 11 mice in all. Standing in front of me was Keith.

"Your vote," I said.  
"I can say no," he stated.  
"Yes."  
He thought for a moment. I couldn't read his face. Yes or no?  
"Well?"

He whispered in my ear. "Aye."

**3**

We are in a realm that you have bestowed upon us. You have named it Transformice, and we have lived by it. For many months and many years we have put up with your little game of 'fetch the cheese'. You have treated us like peasants, like slaves, and like prisoners. For such a long time we have toiled and done as you said with no choice but to follow your command, with a false hope of escape. 

But no more.

We declare our independence from the Council and the Creators. The Runners will be set apart from the Regulars and the Council. The games are over, and the joke is on you. We have the last laugh now. Whether this will result in war or not, that is up for you to decide. But we are prepared for anything you will do.

You have shut down our last tribe, hope, and home Rebellion. This is the first act of violence that we will not simply pass up and ignore. We will fight back and rebel harshly and accordingly. Many a time we had no say in a matter. When this is all over, we will escape and find our way out. To our true home, out there and not in this realm. 

Our tribe is destroyed, but that will not stop us from forming again. We will grow into something much larger than you will have ever imagined. The power comes to us now. And you have no choice in this matter. We will train, and we will battle with you and your Regulars. And in the end, we will be triumphant. 

Take this document, our final word to you and your governing body. Do with it as you wish. But now you know what we will do, and by no means will this be all a joke. This is as real as you will ever think it will be. 

We will call ourselves Rebels and we will soon, eventually, prepare for the inevitable that is to come. Whether or not you will do the same is up for you to decide.

So without another minute's notice, we hereby declare ourselves free and separate from the Creators of the Realm, and the Regular Council of Mice.


	9. Learning New Ways

**1**

We were hanging out behind the Boundary. We had nothing better to do but just train until the Creators and the Council figure out what to do when they read our little declaration.

I was doing small guesswork in my head. The Regulars were about 30% of the population in Transformice. The 70% other mice were either rebels or Runners. We had some good, experienced mice on our side, but the Council was so powerful although we outnumbered them. They had some maneuvers and skills that we couldn't imagine. Would we succeed in this last grasp to obtain what we had longed for so long?

We worked on our infamous 'troll killing' techniques- aiming a bit over the bar, faking shots with the cannonball, quick conjuring, crate shooting. We'd need them. The brains of our group were working on trapping techniques so that the Regulars would be helpless by the time we got to them. Geoangle had made a nice bait trap that didn't fail to trap me at all on its test run.

And then I wondered about the Boundary. I looked at the Boundary, marked around 10 meters or so away. "If we can't use teleport Magik to cross the Boundary, then can we just simply walk over the border? I don't see anything harmful," I remarked.

"Can't," came the expected reply. It was from Lilmouse. "Same material that blocks Magik blocks physical items as well. Techies can't come up with anything to bypass the boundary of physical entry, much less teleportational entry." So much for that idea.

"What happens?" I asked, walking over to the edge of the boundary. "Does something bad happen?" Before anyone could shout a warning, I began to move my hand towards it. Then I felt something tackle me to the ground. "Wha-?"

"You idiot," Lil said. He grabbed my paw and pulled me up. "Sparks. It'll hurt you badly. One, long ago, just blatantly walked in. Almost got himself killed, and he never passed it." Nods from the group. "He was our fastest Runner. During the times when Kerovan was here, he tried going through while knowing he's get injured, but he thought if he went fast enough he could make it. Problem is, the Boundary's much larger than we thought. 5 meters or so thick... enough to kill someone in a flash."

Reluctantly, I said, "Okay," and went back to where I sat a while ago. And we did the game of waiting once again.

I thought about the Prophecy. One day, a mouse would come and break the secret of the Boundary. We would be free. I couldn't help but think that the idea was so far off, so unlikely, that I laughed out loud. Stares came, and I shut up quickly. Dumb.

I saw a scout party come back; we'd assigned a group of mice to go out to see what the Council was up to. "Usual?" I asked.   
"Yeah. Meetings. Lots of 'em are saying that we should go to war. Some are sayin' that we should confront us n' negotiate with us," the mouse replied.  
"You've been a big help," I said with a smile. He smiled back, then went out into his makeshift base not so far off. We called it 801, the new secret base.

Later.

Rise was all gone, and it was nearing Down. We were heading to 801, shuffling onto our quarters for the night. Some of the experienced Magiks had built some small 'houses' for us to stay in.

I then heard a faint sound. It was like a steady, rapid thumping. Then I realized it was running, a group of mice. I thought it was another late scout party just returning when I realized that we were all in the base and no one had left. Regulars? I woke a small group of the mice I trusted to make sure. 

"What...? Simple?" Pompom asked me.  
"Ugh... can't.... huh... Simp...?" Keith said in line with Pom.  
"Hush, get up. Wake the others, the originals. I hear a rush of footsteps, and it's not our party," I said. Faces of surprise, then immediate seriousness.   
"Okay."

We walked in a tight group, me leading. We had picked 801 on a curved bend so that it was unseen except for the mice who knew where it was in the first place. I still thought it was our party, but you can never, ever be sure. I led the group on, slowly. Then I saw it. Small flames. Definitely not us...

"Regulars! The Council!" I whispered loudly.   
"Damn!" Chess exclaimed. "Those Regulars. I swear..."  
"Don't swear and get ready," Vlad told him.

The mice were getting near. We readied our cannons... almost... wait for it...

And then an arrow stuck Son in the leg. We'd waited too long. "NOW!" I shouted.   
Cannons were shot, but only one hit its target, and luckily too. The cannonball had somehow struck one on a blind bluff, revealing the mouse. unconscious. But what I didn't know was that to the others, the mice were invisible. They were as clear as day in my eyes. I readied a crate, placed it, and shot for it. Another one got hit.

"Take care of Son!" I shouted, running through the line of arrow fire and ducking behind the vanilla ledge. I realized that an arrow had nipped my foot. Blood was visible. I didn't care. I shot another one, hitting another mouse full in the chest. The Runners looked at me, bewildered. "How are you..."

Another arrow. Hits Pom in the left shoulder. I cringe. Shit! I glanced. She was still conscious. Thank god that wasn't the chest, it would've been the end of her.  
The mice are all missing their targets, while I'm somehow to them a miracle as I slowly but surely nail one after another. More arrows nip the mice, but all treatable. None were more serious than the shoulder wound.

I then tried something I'd never done before. It was risky, but there were too many injuries. I had to end this. It took more Magik than anyone would ever need, and I'd never even heard or seen it performed before. But I had to. Even if I had to sacrifice myself to do it. I sighed, took a deep breath, and set up a ghost plank above me. The Council was confused at what I was doing, and continued. They aimed more my direction now, though.

Chesseo took down another one in a blind move. About 7 down, and too many left to go. Our active fighters were dwindled to around 10, since many more mice on our side joined the fight.

"Take this, you as*holes!" Dereck shouted as he conjured a double-cannon, one fake-shot, and one regularly shot. He hit both of the mice he had in mind; he was more or less an amazing sharpshooter. 

Meanwhile, I was still working on my ultimate weapon. Beads of sweat rolled down my face, and I was more tired than ever before. I thought, I can't do this. I just can't. Then I had tunnel vision. I was blacking out. The bleeding had gotten to me. No one noticed me since I had stopped shooting cannons. Please, don't let me die now. Please. Please...

...and then my eyes flew open, and the Magik surged in me. Faster, more stronger, and more exhilarating than all the previous surges combined. It felt like I was... pure energy. And I knew I would do this. I focused the energy, strained, pictured it... 

And let go, detaching myself and letting free all the Magik I had stored inside of me. And then I collapsed. I could only watch, paralyzed, behind my safe ledge and saw what I had created.

They called it the End, we called it the Terminator, and it was generally referred to as the Anvil God. It roared, and everyone was speechless. The Regulars stopped in their tracks. The Terminator paused, gave a slight falter...

...and all hell broke loose. I could move again. I ran, fast as the wind, too scared of my own creation, and make a dive towards my comrades.   
"GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE!" I screamed. "RUN!" And they did. 

The Terminator lived up to its name. Fortunately, most lives were not lost. Many had fled or managed to escape with injuries. But some were not so lucky. They had died, killed by the cannons or the wrath of the End. I was bewildered that I had created such a thing. 

And then I walked, with a bandage on my foot and limping to 801. I had too much explaining to do. I wondered if I could tell them of what had happened.

This was unbelievable.

**2**

I limped towards 801. They'd know about this soon. The Council. I was weary, and near death, but they'd send more Regulars. This, however brutal, was just a minor battle of what was to come. You couldn't even cheat death anymore- this, repeatedly being realized, was as real as it was ever going to get. The Runners put a good distance away from me, which they had plenty of reasons why. I had a crapload of explaining to do, that was for sure.   
But the mood in general was energetic and emotional. We'd suffered some injuries, but no casualties or major concerns except for Pom's shoulder, which she'll be sitting out in 801 for a couple weeks on. We'd won our first battle against the Regulars. We'd unanimously named it the Battle of 801.   
We finally got back to the base, exhausted. I made a quick recheck of the mice with me to make sure that all of us were alive. We miraculously were. The Runners, however, looked at me strangely, like I was a completely new mouse that had just arrived here. I understood why they were confused- on one part. I still did not yet realize that they could not see the Regulars when they had the power to.

The mice gathered around Central Base. More like a small space in the middle of nowhere, but it sounded cooler like that.

"Well?" said Son. "You've got a lot of explaining to do. And you can't leave anything out."  
I paused, and then I sighed. "I really don't know. You're talking about the Terminator?"  
"That too," said Raw, "but something else as well. Continue on."

I was a bit confused, but I did my best to tell them what had happened. "I... got shot in the foot. I don't think you noticed." They didn't. But at the end it was obvious enough, with my bloodied bandage and my awkward limp. I had been effectively taken shelter behind the vanilla outcrop. "I was shooting cannonballs like you were, for what seemed like hours, until I decided that the battle was getting too long.

"Many of us had injuries including me and many others here, one had serious injury, and there were too many Regulars still on the opposing side, relentlessly shooting cannons and arrows. I'd heard of the End before, but I had never seen or attempted at all to conjure it before."  
"Usually it results in grave failure, if you know what I'm hinting at," Unity said softly. "That wasn't even thought to be possible, just a dream of some sort."

“I… I know,” I replied. “I was certain that I was going to die. I’d save many mice, but I was almost entirely sure that I was just going to end up sacrificing myself- and then… the Feeling came to me. Everything was sharper, clearer. It was bigger and more exhilarating than ever before.

“I just released it, almost effortlessly. And then the End, the Terminator formed in front of my eyes, and I just ran for it. And that’s really all I have to say about that.”

There was a large pause in the conversation, and it looked like the Runners among me were digesting this information. They’d seen it with their own eyes, so they knew I was talking truth. They were amazed. I did it, but how?

Many mice were huddled together, talking in hushed whispers with a new sense of urgency. Then, after a long while, their facial expressions relaxed. 

“Alright, we’ll touch upon that again later,” a mouse said. “But… we have one more matter to address.” 

I was a bit confused- I thought that I had explained everything, what more was there to explain? 

“Um…” I started out. “What’s this thing ab-?”

“Your amazing accuracy,” Son said. He was recovering nicely, and I was happy to say that he intended on getting up and about as soon as possible, even fight again. I really admired him. “You aimed and hit those Members like they were as clear as crystal.”

I was really confused now. “But… they were crystal clear. I could… see them, if that’s what you mean.”

Gasps, but not too dramatic. I heard some intakes of breath and realization on their faces. I could tell something was definitely up. 

“What’s wrong?” I asked.  
“Well… the fact that you could see them is… special,” Chesseo said. “We couldn’t see them. They were under the spell of Invisibility, we presume.” 

Invisible! Huh! Surprise registered on my face. “Invisible… but then if you can’t, then what about me? Why am I-?”

The whispers became audible, fast chatting, and I still couldn’t understand. Why was I the one with this power? What am I doing here? 

What was I?

The tension couldn’t have been tauter. It was all going to come out, and the string was going to break very soon. And I was going to face the harsh truth. 

“Simple,” Pliked softly said. “You are our Leader.”

**3**

I was in shock. A leader? What...   
"What are you talking about?" I asked. "I'm no leader. I never was."  
"But it all explains it," Pwnk said. "The Summoning... it was unlike anything that we'd seen. It was flawless. You looked like you were Summoning the End almost effortlessly."

The truth was that it sort of was effortless, but I didn't say anything. I was still very confused. 

Lilmouse spoke. "The ability to See the Unseen. It is one of the qualities of our Leader... and of the Prophecy." Nods and murmurs of agreement followed. I seemed to understand what was happening, but I was still in a trance. I still did not yet speak a word.

"We've been very curious about you," Cornelius said. "From the time you first arrived here. You started showing things that we needed months and years to perfect, but you did them in mere weeks. Talks of the Prophecy were passed, but we were doubtful and dispelled all those claims. But now... I'm beginning to think that you were chosen. The Prophecy is starting to come true. You are our Leader."

At last, I uttered a sentence. More like a murmur of two words. "Why me...?"

"You are a bit confused. Surprised, definitely. Here, see this," Chess said. He fingered his left pocket for a moment, then fished something old and worn out. "This is..."  
I didn't need to hear any more, and I understood perfectly. "The Document. Of the Prophecy."   
"Yes."

I unfolded the paper and began to read aloud-

Decades after Kerovan  
Shall be the time where need is great.  
Turmoil and rebellion will follow protests in its wake.  
But with just the Rebels there will be defeat  
And if only their hope will carry through the heat.  
Instead they must wait for a day to arrive  
Where hopes will be great and trust will lie  
On a lone mouse, that comes from the Border  
And will break the curse of the Creator's order.  
He, or she, will lead the way   
From utter defeat to a hopeful day  
Where the Boundary will break with the Leader's power  
And we will be free at last, on one fateful hour.

The Prophecy. I felt tears come into my eyes as I realized what is to come, and what I had to do. The rhyming, on a trivial matter, could have been better. But the message that carried through could not have been more important. And everything suddenly became sharp and true to me as I went to a flashback not so long ago.

I was reading the Document, Kerovan's Document of Ways. I remembered reading all of them, and stopping on the last one...

**Way of True Purpose**

And now, after everything me and my comrades and friends have been through, I realized that I knew how to complete the final and most important Way. Realize the reason that I had come here. And my own couldn't be more clear- I was their Leader now. The Prophecy had come. My true purpose was to lead the Runners to freedom, after so many long years. And no matter what happened, that was exactly what I was going to do. 

The silence had prolonged through my thinking. "I have an announcement now," I said. The Runners were on alert. What was it going to be?  
"We'd had some ridiculously hard times," I said. "Some good things along the way, but many hardships. It's time to end this once and for all. We've declared freedom, and our first battle has been won. The Prophecy has come true. And I will be your Leader!" I declared.

And we celebrated with a new sense of emotion and determination that nobody could ever surpass. We had more that high hopes- our goals were sky-high. And we were going to finish what we started. 

\---

But the fun did not last, as all things go. And suddenly everything was serious again, and it was pretty much the start of our battle with the Council.

Shadow and his scout team had come, urgently and hurriedly. "Some... some... something..." he gasped. He had obviously sprinted with all his might to come here, and no doubt to warn us of something.

"What is it?" I said with uncertainty.   
"The.. ground... bad... ah!" He croaked, and collapsed. I saw a single, bleeding shard of wood protruding on his back. He was wounded, probably by an attack. Damnit...

I quickly turned to Ami. "Help Shadow!" I shouted. Then I spoke to his companion. "Yes?..."  
"The ground... I mean, the water... below the platforms. It's not water anymore," he said, in a very confusing way. We all didn't get it.

"What do you mean?" Pompom asked. "If it's not water, then what is it?"  
"I think it's best if you just come and look," he replied. "But be careful. There was only one crate, but Shadow got it very bad." Like I really needed that splendid information. But I stayed calm and followed Ceronius. 

While walking out of 801, I was pretty nervous, and scared mixed in with that too. You could very plainly see it in my involuntary shaking. But I shrugged it off. "It's a bit cold out," I lied, even though it was getting a bit warmer for my taste. It was hotter that usual. What was the matter? But I didn't really pay attention to it much and we walked on.

Soon, we got to the border of the Mainland and I saw the scariest thing I'd seen in my time in this realm of Transformice. I could tell it was hard to explain, but it really was something. We luckily did not see any Regulars come, but I think we saw something much worse.

Usually, below the elevated platforms, you'd see water below. But not now. Instead, there was a great big ocean of red, hot lava surrounding us. The heat intensified as I got closer, and the lava bubbled and spurted short, fatal flares. I knew what this meant- falling into the once-safe water now meant certain death. I groaned at how many lives I guessed we'd lose because of this evil twist that the Creators must have done. They could not Banish us, not with our combined Magik levels. But they could certainly do this. We would call it the Scorching.

"Well," I said a bit too casually for everyone's liking. "It seems a little warm in here, don't you think?"  
"This isn't funny," Vlad said. "This is big-time."

I had made a mistake and I knew it. I got serious again. "So... what do you make of this?"  
Chesseo replied with the sentence we'd been dreading, but waiting for all the same. "I think," he said calmly, "That the war for freedom has begun at last."


	10. Battle For the Second Dimension

**1**

"The war..." Ghost said. "It's begun."

Nobody said a word for a long while. Then I broke the silence. 

"We need to gather all the rebels and devise a plan to take this Dimension," I said. "To even think about winning, we need to cover all vital bases. That means..."  
"The Vanilla rooms. Roughly 115 in all," Pom said. "And the Badlands, about 50 major strongholds there."  
"So that's around 165 bases. We have a couple thousand rebels in this Dimension, so we'll have to sort the rebels out accordingly." Later estimates put the number at around 50,000. 

"A few of you gotta stay in 801, because this is the rebel base," Amersee said. "The rest must split up. We have no time to lose before the Regulars make their first official move, and from there it's the survival of the fittest." We knew the drill. And with the lava twist, many more lives were going to be lost. Is this worth it? The lives of thousands of mice, Runners and Regulars alike, for the element of freedom? 

But I knew that this was the right thing to do. I took my sword and slung it on my belt. Before we split up, I was going to say something fine and true, and convince the rebels that we were going to fight this battle, and we were going to win.

I cleared my throat. The Runners knew I was going to say something, and they turned their heads slightly in my direction.

"We're going to separate," I began. "About fifty mice to a base, minimum. Our numbers might be large, but the Regulars will have superior skills and power over us.  
"That does not mean anything. Skills and power and being part of an upper class does not trump our hope and determination. Our morale and our purpose is stronger than theirs tenfold.   
"We have trained for a very long time. Cannons, crates, arrows. Skills that you will cherish while going into battle. You must use every skill and technique that you learned for this battle that we have all been waiting for, or we will all perish.   
"The harsh truth is that we are not going to get through this with no lives lost. Some of you may... or may not... die. I understand that some of you may not be willing to fight, because of the fact that your life is on the line. I am not going to lie to you- this is a very dangerous battle. If you choose to leave now, I will not be angry. If you choose to go now without us, please do so now." I waited.

A minute passed. I stood patiently, waiting. But to my surprise, I did not see one mouse shift towards the exit of 801. They stood where they were, listening. And waiting.   
Tears almost came to my eyes as I burned with a passion of these mice. I respected them far more than my own life. They were willing to give their lives for the cause, and I could not have been more proud of each and every one of these Runners.

I came to. "Remember the word that you thought, are thinking, and will think during this inevitable war. Freedom. If we give it our all, and show them that we will not back down, then that dream will come true." I was done, and ready to go. I couldn't stand this any more. I had to leave 801, now. 

A single clap from someone. I didn't know who. Then another, and another, until cheers and hoots followed and roars of freedom echoed through the entire base. At that moment we did not care if the Regulars heard and came or not. We could take them. Besides, with the little magic show I put on for them last time, I don't think they'll be coming near here anytime soon.

But that soon died off, and we became serious. 

"Pick a group around fifty," Sabusha said. "Choose a stronghold and go there. The Regulars will be doing the same, and so the war... will begin."  
"The War for Freedom," Silver said. "It will never be forgotten."

We were pumped. Energy was flying as fast as lightning around the groups. But they knew that we'd need more than just a purpose, even though it did matter greatly. We needed to win.

We were now starting to head out towards the Mainland. In the distance, I saw a burst of light, and then smoke rise in the distance. The Regulars were on their move. But we were, too. 

I said a final sentence, then walked away in silence with my pack. 

"Good luck."

**2**

Our pack wasn't going to stay in one place. We were going to move in a circle route so that we covered the most ground as possible. Our most skilled mice and the Runners I trusted belonged to our group, named Alpha Delta. It looked like the first base we were going to take was the one not too far from us, but an important base for the Regulars- Vanilla 67. Some bases were more important than others. This was very important because to get through to around thirty bases past 67 you had to cross this base first, and so usually whoever controlled Vanilla 67 had most control of Vanilla 68 to 100. The other Vanilla bases were not around 67's radius- we sent other groups for those mains. 

The Regulars no doubt knew this as well, so they'd be going after the same things we were. We decided to hit 67 because we knew that we would get there first- but of course when the Regulars came here it would be an enormous battle. It was also one of the most dangerous areas- there were only two thick columns on either side (we chose the western side) and four skinny, unstable columns in the middle. One misstep on those columns and you were going to fall into the incinerating lava below. 

No one really talked as we ventured out with hurried footsteps toward our destination. We were too busy thinking to ourselves and going over the techniques that we'd learned. We traveled in a group so that the Council's Magik would be counteracted by ours. This meant that they could not use Invisible Magik or even use Banishing to get rid of us. It was just going to be pure Shaman Magik skills.

Soon we arrived, tired but alert at the same time. We were cautious, for the Regulars could already be in hiding. After a thorough sweep led by Suyash, it was confirmed that the Regulars had not yet arrived.

"Stay alert. That's not 100% sure," Chess told the group. "Always have your Magik ready, on hand."

We decided to hide near the skirts of the base and then attack the Regulars by surprise. This was hard to do because there were really no safe hiding spots, and below we were confronted with an ominous-looking pool of lava. So we made a secret plan. We were going to wait for the Regulars to arrive, and then we'd execute it.

Sooner or later, I heard a small disturbance in the air. I knew without a doubt that those would be the Regulars. “Get ready,” I said. I sent the bait group out, a small pack of around ten mice. We were going to attempt to send out a small group, and while they were distracted with that bait ambush them from the western side. We were all cramped trying to stay unseen, but we surely didn’t want to become noticed. I heard a conversation going on-  
“Who are you?” I heard Gold ask the Regulars. I wasn’t sure if they were even Council members or not.  
“Members of the Council of Regulars, and we come in the name of the Creators of the Realm,” a mouse replied. I recognized the voice, but I did not know who he was. It was back… when I had learned Shaman Magik… my eyes brightened. Reddit!

“Now it is our turn to ask who are you, and whose side are you on?” Reddit asked them, with a calm but serious tone.  
“My name is Sparks,” Gold lied, “and me and my group has been seeking refuge from the Scorching. We do not with for violence, and we take no side.” The others in his group nodded agreement. They didn’t seem to be giving anything away, and they didn’t sound like they were faking it. If they weren’t in my group I almost would’ve believed them. 

“How do we know that you are not lying?” another Regular said. I didn’t recognize him, but it might have been Holz. “Give us proof so that we believe you.”

Fortunately we had predicted this would happen. I heard ‘Sparks’ make a rustling noise, and out of the corner of my eye I saw Gold give a document to the Member… yes, it was indeed Holz.

“This is identification and the Document showing what my intentions are,” Gold said. “As you can see, it has been signed by the Speaker of the Council showing that I am trying to seek refuge in a Regular Base.” We thought that forging the Speaker’s signature would convince our small group to get through safely. But we were wrong.

Reddit turned to another Regular. “Speaker,” he said. “Do you recall signing a document of this sort?” Shit! They had the Speaker with them!

The Speaker, an old mouse with gray hair, inspected the document. After a while of looking it over again for a third time, he replied, “I’m sorry, but I don’t recall signing anything of this sort. I’ve checked it over again and again.”

Holz realized what this must mean. “Then that means…”  
Another Regular finished. “This group is lying! They are criminals and forgers!”   
Gold of course was taken aback, because this was not part of the plan. “You must believe us,” he pleaded. He made a quick glance in my direction, slightly and slyly in such that the Regulars would not notice. I winked at him. “We do not mean any harm. See?” he said emptying his belt and pockets. “We do not carry any weapons.”

The Regular group looked at them or a long while. It was obvious that they were pondering whether or not to let them through or dispose of them. The latter was not going to happen, not while I was breathing air. 

Silence. Painful, harsh silence. No one in Gold’s group dared to speak a word. Then a sentence, softly spoken by Reddit. “Kill them.”

This was our chance. “NOW!” I yelled. And we jumped up and charged through the base, with cannons loading and spirits on our fingertips.

**3**

Bombs. How did bombs get here? I didn't think that it was a shaman object. Who was creating those? And they were deadly, too. I saw a mouse get hit and he flew sky-high. Needless to say, I never saw his face again. Unfortunate. I kept wondering about this until I realized that they were Regulars. They could do anything- they could conjure a house in the blink of an eye for all I care. Meanwhile, I paid attention to the movements of the Regulars and staying behind the line of fire. I was a spiriter, mainly, using strategic forces of simple Magik to force the Regulars into traps by our cannon specialists. Happily, the no room for error in 67 went to our advantage, as the spirit plus cannon combo worked beautifully. Really, everything was going pretty much to our advantage- the sudden movement of the Runners had caught the Regulars by surprise. 

I couldn't risk going out into the open, but if I saw a Runner get hit, I would dash over as fast as I could and get him taken care of. Once while doing this I got nailed hard in the back. Just a bruise, however; it had nipped me. I was lucky. I thanked Kerovan as I hurried back behind the vanilla ledge that safely hid me. 

I devised a slight plan to take out a group of mice who were situated not too far from us. They couldn't see us at the moment, but they were dangerous with their powerful runes. Their runes had a kind of attracting power, forcing all mice near its radius to come to it, involuntarily. Then, it was just an easy cannon to dispose of the victims. Very creative, and very serious. Many of my Runners were getting injured. How many that were dead, I did not know. It was scary thinking of the possible deaths that could happen in this battle alone, but I couldn't be deterred. I needed to concentrate on what was happening now, or I would join the deceased. 

I would go out, and a pack of three would cover me. I'd go over to the other hidden ledge than we could see on our side, but the Regulars couldn't. Then we'd sneak up on behind and ambush them. It was a very dangerous move because the fight was everywhere, with arrows whizzing constantly in my head and too many cannons and crates to count. I saw so many spirits that I almost got seizures. But of course I didn't. I would need the backup cover- the Regulars were trying to figure out where I was, since I was apparently the most important Runner they needed. 

I waited until the coast was clear (somewhat), made a quick plea of help, and then dashed. It was around fifty meters away. In the distance I saw the Regulars blink, turn their heads, and react towards me. They reached for their Magik and I saw the faint outline of a cannon. Damn Regs...

Curiously, if you timed your spirit right, you could stop even cannons with spirits. It required immense concentration and practice, but once you learned how it was a very useful technique. Especially in times like this. I reached for my spirits. 

Thirty or so yards. Amser took out a Regular with another cannon. I had to give Amser more credit that I should have; he had a pretty good aim. Exp followed closely on my trail, with watchful eyes. I saw another Regular load a cannon. This time, backup cover couldn't stop it. This was on my own. 

Slow motion is a peculiar thing. To everybody else, it is in real time and everything flashes quickly past their eyes. Everything happens in a flash. But in the victim’s perspective, time seems to almost cease as I see the cannon coming for me, and as I prepare my spirit at the same time. The cannon keeps me frozen in fear. It is on a direct line with my path. I think that this is the end. I close my eyes, and let out the Magik. A millisecond off my timing will kill me. 

I watch the spirit and the cannon come together, slowly. I dive, trying to dodge the cannon, but it is so close to me now that I am sure that the spirit will not stop it. I brace for the worst…

…and just like that, I see the spirit collide with the cannon head on. The cannon spins off-target and rolls off into the lava below. I have no time to be astonished at my impossible luck- I still have an attack to commence. I run the last ten meters, panting and relieved. Exp and Amser are behind me, luckily unhurt.

“What’s the situation?” I barely make out. I feel like lying down forever, undisturbed. But I must face the reality that I still hear the deafening sound of those spirits and cannons flying about, not too far from us.

“Regulars that saw you got taken care of,” Amser replied quickly. I noticed that Exp and Amser weren’t the liveliest bunch either. They were obviously tired, and it showed on their faces. “You’re clear. We got your back, don’t worry.”

I was so proud and happy that I didn’t know what to do, with my condition and my emotions. “You’ve done a good job,” is all I could manage. “We don’t have much distance to go. We can pull this off. Come on!”

Two other mice that were already at the hidden ledge with me followed the pack, becoming five. We were unseen by the other Regulars; we made a huge circle route around the perimeter of 67. Only a couple meters away were the group of Rune specialists. In plain sight I could see them use a Rune. I glanced at the victim, whose face was all too familiar…

It was Chesseo!

\---

I swore. What to do? Give up the ambush or give up Chesseo? It was an extremely difficult decision. Did I value our victory or a friend’s life? 

Lilmouse clearly saw my predicament. He paused, only for a moment for time was running short, and then said, “Do what your heart tells you.” And he was right. I had to follow my gut instinct. 

I sighed. However important this battle was, I couldn’t let Chesseo die. I quickly told the pack about my intentions, and they nodded. 

We waited until one of the Runers had their backs turned to us, and then we made the attack. “CHARGE!”

Of course, the Regulars weren’t expecting us, and they faltered. One of them tripped and nearly fell, but Amser took care of that mouse fairly easily. The others were not so clumsy. Among that mess, I dove for Chesseo, knocking him to the ground.

Chess looked at me. “Simple!”  
“You dumbass,” I said, but harmlessly. “Follow me, or we’re both going to an eternal freedom that you don’t want to visit.” He got my point. We quickly stood up to face the situation.

The Runners were still in advantage on the other side. It looked bloody- I groaned. I turned to our half of the field. The Runers were the only serious targets, and the other Regulars were basically done and cared for. We now had ten Runners to seven Runers. It was going to be tough.

One Runer faced me directly, and smiled. I frowned, and got ready. It was going to be a deathmatch, and these were not fun at all.

I surprised myself by saying, “You suck at fighting. I could kill you easily.” This ticked him off, and grunted. Before I knew it, a cannon was flying my way. I swore.

I shifted to the side, barely dodging the cannon, and quickly setting up a crate. The Regular stole my crate, backfiring it on me. Fortunately I had expected this and had spirited myself up on the crate, in the nick of time. I aimed a spirit in his direction, forcing him to move. I set up another crate combo.

The Regular wasn’t fast enough this time to steal my crate. I attached the cannon, and the Runer was just smart enough to stop the crate with a cannon of his own. I was running out of ideas. 

On and on we battled, sharing one barrage of cannons with one another. Sound around us became muffled as we fought. All of my senses were on high alert, and I had to follow every one of my instincts. One fault and I could very well be dead.

Then I noticed a peculiar thing. I was gaining ground, and the Runer was slowly being pushed to the edge of the platform and into the lava below. I devised a peculiar plan.

We were dodging crates and cannons as usual, when I suddenly made an unorthodox move. I prepared a cannon, but just when I was about to release the Magik I feinted, spun around, and conjured a spirit right in front of the Runer, catching him off guard. He tipped back a little, and that was all I needed. With a final leap, I used what would be my last cannon in this everlasting tirade. 

I heard a sickening crunch as the cannon hit the Runer right in the stomach. No doubt ribs were broken. I saw the Regular give a last, feeble cry as he dropped from the platform and disappear into the lava below. Dead.

I spit. Good riddance. And I looked around me and saw something peculiar.

The Runers were gone, and I did not hear the whines of cannons being fired. Everything was more or less quiet. I looked around and cried of joy. The Runners had won.

The Regulars had lost, many lying on the platform we stood on. Many had been lost in the lava. A handful of Runners were left, and in Chesseo’s hand I saw a crown. The crown of the Chief Runer. We had emerged victorious.

“We… we won,” I managed to croak.  
“It looks like it,” Pom said. Her shoulder bandage was gone.

“We defeated the Regulars!” Son exclaimed. “We’ve done it!”   
If the cheers before today was loud, multiply it by ten and you had us right now. Spirits were high, and all of us were never happier. 

I had to take numbers. “How many still here?”  
“About twenty-five,” a mouse said. “Half are either MIA or… gone.” I understood.  
“And our situation on the Mainland? We took this base. Do you have any information about the others?”  
“We just got word from a survivor in Vanilla 40,” the mouse replied. “They had won, but just barely. A meager three survived there.”

This was a dark thought. Many were dead, and we had not even gone close to finding out about the others. But right now, it was best to think of the bright side. 

Half of us had survived here. The specifics I would find later. But at the moment, it was time to collect our thoughts and spend the night here.

I wondered what was to happen, and what was next. I would figure out everything that happened today, tomorrow. But right now that I wanted to do was rest in peace.

And that is exactly what I did, falling to sleep like a log. 


	11. Truth

**1**

I was back in action. I think I slept for an eternity, and I could feel it too. Some beautiful bruises had popped up all over my body, especially the places where I'd been hit during the Runer showdown. I was extremely tired, and I saw caked blood scattered in bits throughout the battlefield. I gave a small groan. I was out of it for a while, then I snapped to. I remembered where I was, and I became serious. I scanned our makeshift base on 67 and looked at our situation. 

It looked like it was the early dawn, since nobody really was awake except for a couple of meds and some Originals hanging out along the skirts of the base. What was weird was that there were many mice that I wasn't familiar with in the base except for one or two people. I approached Crash, our weapons specialist. I put a hand on his shoulder, and he whirled around and almost dropped his weapons kit on my foot. He was obviously surprised to see me, but a huge smile crossed his face. 

"Simple!" he exclaimed. "You're up!"  
"Yeah, although I really don't feel like waking up," I said. "Hurting all over right now."  
"Tell me about it. Everybody's feeling it, and we've barely started this war."  
"We've got a long way to go."  
"Yeah."

I tried to figure out what had happened while I was gone. "Battle all figured out?" I asked.  
"That and more."  
"How long was I out?"  
He paused, and looked straight at me. "A week."  
"What?"  
"A week."  
"I heard you, but are you serious? Wow," I breathed. A lot could happen in a week. I needed to get caught up to date.  
"Anything bad happen?"  
"Nah. Few losses but nothing we can't handle."  
"I want you to give me the laydown. All of it."  
"That may take a while, but anything you say. I'm just glad you're upn' running."

I had one more question, though. "What happened to Delta Pack?"  
"Moved on," Crash replied. "They're continuing on that circle route without you, and they're doing a pretty good job. No losses on their behalf yet. And they made a sub group take care of you. We got this base covered, regs a'int coming here anytime soon."  
I guess that made sense. "I'd like to catch up to them, though..."  
"Hard to do. They're loads of miles ahead of you, and we need you here. Lots of action around 67 that we aren't doing so good in." A worried expression crossed his face.

Damn. I really had missed out on a lot. "Alright, I can live with that," I said. "Give me the summary of what the hell's been going on while I was gone. I need to figure out what to do." I sprawled on the floor, already exhausted. I could never catch up to Delta at this rate- Crash was right.

“Alright, Simp, instead of sadly wasting my time rolling through pages of explaining what happened, I’ll give you the hard copy. Take a look, and take as long as you need. I’m in no hurry,” he said. I guess that was better. He handed me a thin packet of various papers- their supplies were obviously running low. I took a deep breath and started to read. 

. . .

War for Freedom – 3.10.12  
Data and other information compiled by Crash, Chesseo, Pompomball, Ghost, and Pliked, and Pwnk.

I. Battle of Vanilla 67  
\- Rebels 70% over Regulars  
\- Result – Rebels, 32 and wipe  
\- Casualties estimated at 25 to 30  
\- Control of Main 67, positives on 68 to 100

Around 25 to 30 casualties. I wasn’t a crying type but right now tears came to my eyes. Half or Delta was dead. Forever. And that couldn’t be changed. I didn’t get life sometimes, and why we were doing this in the first place. Was freedom such a hard price to pay?

II. Subs 68-100  
\- Rebels currently controlling 13 of the 32 bases  
\- Regulars controlling roughly 10/32 bases  
\- 9 bases yet to be controlled, currently sending out 15 campaigns of 45 to take the rest, with around 5 groups attempting to take out some Regular bases

III. Battle of Vanilla 40  
\- Rebels 55% over Regulars  
\- Result – Rebels, 3 and wipe  
\- Casualties: 52  
\- Sub group sent to secure the unstable base, controlled in 4 days and positives on 41 to 66

That had been an extremely close battle. They were fighting at the same time we were. But the outcome was different. Three measly mice had survived. I could imagine their despair and their feelings as they realized that they were the only ones left. A backup group had been put, because you can’t control anything with only three mice.

But the job had been done, and we had the advantage on 41-66, a big chunk of areas. Things could have been worse. My friend Throughunity had died in the Battle of 40. He will live on. I remembered the day when he taught me how to wall jump, which seemed ages ago. One tiny drop this time came falling from my eye. Who else will give their lives for the cause? I read on.

===

IV. Subs 41-66  
\- Rebels controlling 16 of the 25 bases  
\- Regulars controlling 5 of the 25 bases  
\- 4 bases are undetermined, they are dangerous and unstable areas so no one has greatly secured those areas  
\- Pockets of three to five mice are overseeing the undetermined bases, seven sub groups will try to overtake existing Regular strongholds

At the moment, we were controlling most of the bases. We were winning the war! I smiled. I couldn’t be more proud of this. But I was about to face the harsh truth. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably isn’t true.

V. Battle of 27  
\- Equal more or less on both divisions  
\- Result – Regulars, 48 to 2 (escaped)  
\- Casualties: More than 75  
\- Negatives on bases 28-39

VI. Subs 28-39  
\- Regulars have control of all bases 28-39  
\- We are making a huge effort to try and take over some of the bases

This was when the battle had suddenly made a sharp turn. The Regulars weren’t playing baby games anymore. They were serious, big-time. They were calling all the shots now, and they were purposely giving us a false hope that we could do this; and then they come in with this crap. I snarled.

Two escaped, and Crash later told me that they were recovering over at 98, which was very far away from 27. I guess they wanted to be as far away from that base as possible. Also, the sub bases were totally dominated by the Regulars. Their best warriors were fighting now, and they didn’t screw up. There were only 11 bases, but they were some of the most important ones. We had to do something serious about that. But we still had general control over the other two main bases, so that was good.

VII. Battle of Zero and its Sub Bases  
\- So far there are no current battles that are going on in the zero area  
\- Sub bases 1 to 28  
\- Rebels control 25 to 28  
\- Regulars control 4, 7, 8, 10, and 12; the rest are undetermined

We are very far from Base 0, in Mainland terms. The regulars are too. But they are closer to it than we are, so they will probably end up controlling that spot in the end. Delta is approaching some of their sub bases right now; Iota and Beta are making moves as well. But we aren’t quite there yet. 

Further information will be added as the Leader is notified of the information.

It seemed that while I was gone, Crash became the ‘Leader’. Of course I’m up now and that means that it’s my turn now. And I’ll have to step up to the challenge.

I put the notes down. Crash hears me do this as looks up from his clipboard where he puts all of his notes. A Magik pouch was in his hand. 

“You done?”  
“Pretty much.”  
“So, what do you think of it? I was the makeshift Leader while you were gone, by the way.”  
“I know that. It’s… okay, overall.”  
“On our half.”  
“But on the Regular side…”  
“We suck, to put it in a nutshell. Casualties aren’t just over 100- battles have been fought in the same area over and over, and the death toll is ridiculous. We have a problem going on, and we have no idea how to solve it. The Mainland is at a stalemate.” Crash had summarized what was in my mind. It was a tight war. We had more bases covered, but the Regulars were just getting started. We are only 13 days in this war.

“I gotta think this out,” I said. This was all confusing for me.  
“Here, let me draw a map for you,” Crash said. He got out his last strip of paper and drew out a rough outline of the Mainland.

“This right here is where we are, Vanilla 67,” Crash said, pointing at a spot around the upper section of the mainland but not quite near the coast. I nodded.  
“The coast is where the expendable bases are?”  
“Right. Over 100, we don’t care about, although we have those bases down pat. Regulars haven’t even gotten to those bases yet; they still got a couple days to go. Anyways, here’s 40…” He pointed to a spot smack in the middle of the mainland. So we had general control of our half of the Mainland, a good thing.

“27 is near the southeastern section of the Main, and 0 is at the southern coast.” He pointed to their respective places and drew the bases in. He then shaded in the sub bases and who controlled them. Slowly I saw our situation unfold in this small piece of paper. I began to see where we were, what we couldn’t and could do, and what we had to do. 

The majority of the Mainland was rebel territory, but the Regulars were eating up our bases slowly but surely. The more southern part of the Main was like an indestructible fortress- it was near impossible for the rebels to get in unless they found a way to break down some of the Regular bases. There were no gaps in the Regular defense. On the other hand, although we had more bases, our defense was stretched out and more generous to the Regulars. When they came around to here, we’d be slaughtered. We needed backup over here, and we needed it now.

“You’re thinking what I’m thinking, I suppose,” Clash told me. It wasn’t a question.  
“We need backup over here. We can’t fend for ourselves- even if it means giving up all our bases to the south of the Main.”  
“Exactly what I was thinking. Even if it’s going to be a stalemate on the Mainland, it’s better than attempting to break the already strong Council defense and end up losing 80% of our territory.”  
“So we need to hope that everything goes right by the time we get to Vanilla 40.”  
“Exactly!”

We sighed deep breaths. We had a very, very long way to go. But the hope for freedom was bigger than ever before. We could do this. Our main focus was this dimension, The Mainland of the Second. Badlands was another situation, but lots of the other dimensions had taken care of that. We’d come through. But we’d have to rely on a lot of luck. 

“I’m going to take another nap,” I told Clash.   
“Do whatever, just wake up around noon and not in a week again,” Clash yawned with a grin.

**2**

I opened my eyes once again, and immediately realized that I hadn't kept my agreement with Crash. I definitely slept past noon. Sure enough, when I could get a good look at the hour, it was well past it- close to the Fall. Fifteen hundred hours. I groaned. 

I walked up to where Crash was, busy preparing his weapons kit. A group of mice were doing the same. That meant that we were going to go on a campaign, and by the looks of our supplies it was going to be pretty far in the Mainland to a place a bit past Vanilla 40. Crash looked up at me and gave a slight smile.

"Gee, Simp, I thought you were going to doze another week again by the looks of you," he chuckled.   
"Yeah, sorry I went a few hours past what you said."  
"It's all good. As you can probably see, me and a bunch of other mice are going on a campaign..."  
"To 40?"  
"Yep. You're coming with us, too. Here, I was packing your stuff. This is yours." He handed me a very heavy pack- I was surprised that I could lift it at all, although barely. 

"I'm going to have to carry this crap?"  
"It's not crap, and yes- you will. Very important survival stuff in there. And if you're too weak to carry it-" he gave a light smirk, but not in a mean way- "You can always leave it behind. Might not be such a good choice, though... you'll need that stuff..."  
I sighed. "Alright. When do we start moving?"  
"About seventeen hundred hours, not far from now. Get ready, sort out everything you need to do before we go. We're going to follow Omega pack towards 40 and see if we can't do anything about these Regular bases scattered around there. Our territory's pretty weak."  
"Alrighty, see you then."

The war was a very complicated thing. Even I didn't understand every part of it. But I thought over and over in my head about our situation. I needed to get all the confusion out of my head.

Technically, the Battle of 801 had been the real first battle and start of the war, the first clash between the two opposing sides of the Rebels and Regulars. But tensions had grown to extremes way before that. We had our Declaration, the Regulars shut our tribe down, and signs of protest were everywhere. Then came the Scorching and its deadly lava, where too many of our brave mice had fallen into. The sign that told us the Regulars weren’t going to do nothing anymore. Even now I can smell the trace of the lava and smoke from where I stood.

The Battle of 67 and 40 generally happened around the same time, and they both had decent results. 40 was a very close win- only three mice survived and we had to send a backup group to stabilize the base. The subs and 27 came later, which were more or less losses.

The whole point that we were fighting right now was to take control of the Mainland. We needed to secure every base until we find where the Council is, and force them to surrender. We needed to take the most bases, and take down the Regular forces. The Mainland was more than 50 percent of the land in the Boundary- that is why it was the most important section of the war. Other dimensions would be fighting for their Mainland, which I hoped was going well, but for the Badlands as well. They had around 50 important bases that were crucial in the war. 

In the Mainland, our situation was like this. We had covered more than half of the Mainland, but our territory was ruptured by small Regular pockets that weakened our defense. If the Regulars could connect those pockets and make them together, our defense could very well be ruined. To the south, where the Regulars are, they have already made an extremely strong line of defense that seems impossible to break at the moment. They have the works over there. We’ve gotten some bases to the south of there, one or two, by traveling around the Mainland. But it is a very long journey to do such a thing, and the Regulars would be waiting for us. That’s why we only have a couple bases, and not that secure. 

So instead of trying to take over the entire Mainland, we’re trying to get at least 50% of the Main. If we keep attempting to gain ground towards the south, I fear that we will just end up wasting the lives of many Rebels and have all our existing territory taken over by the Regulars. We have a couple kilometers south of 40, but the Regulars are taking ground fast. We need all our forces way down south back to 40, and fast. If they don’t reach us in time, we won’t have enough mice to fight, and the Regulars will take over us with their sheer force. And that was the sad truth.

I explained this to Crash.  
“You’re right on the dot,” he said. “We’re campaigning for some spots a bit south of forty, but it’s up to us to gather up all our mice and bring them to the 40 parallel.”’  
“So, what am I going to do?”  
“You’re the Leader. You’re supposed to tell me what to do, if it weren’t for you taking that ridiculous nap.”  
I thought for a moment. “I’ll get some mice around 40 when we get there, a large group, and then we’ll see if we can’t do anything about the southern campaigns.”  
“You go do that, and I’ll make sure that happens,” Crash said. A faint smile was on his face.

So we’ll be campaigning around forty. I hope nothing bad will happen, but I have a dark feeling in my gut that a horrible thing will occur. We will just have to wait and see. 

**3**

The all-too familiar sound of an incoming cannonball flew towards me. With instants to spare I reacted, diving to the left. The cannon barely missed me, and continued on its flight path until it rolled into the lava abyss not far from where I stood. A while off, I saw the Regular who threw the cannon at me make a frustrated gesture, and then quickly load another cannon. I went for cover behind a rocky vanilla outcrop. Once again, I was on a live battlefield where the sound of cannons, crates, and spirits were deafening. But now, the field was much more dangerous, and the stakes were definitely higher. I put my back on the outcrop as I scanned our side of 39.

Pompomball, Vladsgirl, Tommato, Chesseo, Keithhh, Turbo, Crash, and others had joined me by either making a detour on the Delta trail or coming with me from 67. To my left there was Vlads, doing her best over there taking care of injured mice. She was our temporary nurse while the battle was being fought. Not far from Vlads was Pom, taking a bunch of stolen Regular arrows and crouching behind a small fort, waiting for a chance to come for her to attack. 

Keith and Chess were in a duo pair, back to back, not for away from me. They were in a double-battle with some fierce Runers. I worried for their safely and was going to run if not for a Regular with some kind of totem. The totem was massively huge, and I marveled in respect on how much effort that must have taken to conjure. A large, menacing mechanism loomed above me like a crusher. I didn’t chance on going after that. They were doing fine as it is. I would scold myself later for being such a coward, but I stood and watched.

“Look out!” Keith warned as a crate flew at Chess. Keith fired a rapid spirit that barely stopped it. Chess looked at Keith quickly as a show of thankfulness, then turned to load a double-cannon at the Regulars. They were prepared, however. They quickly set up a ghost shield- and in the nick of time, for the cannon basked into the shield with all its might a nanosecond later. But the plank would not budge. Their Magik was highly effective. We would have a tough battle. I quickly saw Chess and Keith advance on the Regular pair, and then set off for our makeshift base on the far side of the battlefield. 

I approached Crash. “What’s up?” he said, and not in a casual way.  
“Alright, but it’s not going anywhere,” I replied. “We need more mice to come help us.”   
“I’ll take care of that. Go! Oh, actually, do you see that group of Regs over there?” Crash pointed in the distance, a couple hundred meters away, to a group of Runers. I hate Runers. I groaned.   
“I’ll go make sure that they don’t cause any trouble.”  
“That’s my man.”

I backed off and turned around just in time to see a Regular load a cannon towards Crash. “Crash! Heads!” I yelled, making a weak spirit in an attempt to stop it Crash turned towards me for a brief second…

But it was useless. The cannon was flying right for Crash’s body. I watched helplessly as the cannon collided with Crash’s tiny body. I let out a small squeak, then turned quickly towards the Regular. Three things were on my mind then at that moment. One, I needed to travel to the other bases to get some reinforcements. Second, I had an annoying bunch of Runers that were controlling the center of the field. And third, the Regular in front of me was going to die by my hands. 

I yelled, “Son of a bitch!” and charged the Regular. His eyes gave a hint of surprise, but sidestepped my feeble attempt. I quickly spirited myself out onto a raised ledge and make a quick plank shield. The Regular looked up, then spirited himself up onto another ledge. 

I started to build a contraption that we liked to call the Bullet. It was designed so that whatever you put in it, the Bullet would spit it out in an alarming rate even faster than a cannon. Like a crate or a ball or another thing that was small enough to fit in the Bullet. The catch was that it took a long time, and the Regular was starting to build his own deathly contraption. 

I quickly laid some anvils down and shot them with a cannon. The Reg barely missed them, although one hit his right leg hard. He fell, but only for a moment. He got up and started making a huge crate stack. I groaned, and continued working on the Bullet quickly. Not far away I saw Keith get struck by a Regular’s arrow, and Chess hitting the Regular with a well-placed cannon. I was worried; why didn’t I help them before? But I couldn’t lose my focus, not yet. Vladsgirl came to Keith, but then I looked away.

So many things were going on in this long battle. Keith had been hit, and it was just Chess and the other Regular now. We needed reinforcements. The Regulars were gaining ground. In my current situation we were building a contraption and firing each other with deadly cannons at the same time. It was hard to multitask, especially in war.

Then the Regular I was fighting made a crucial mistake. While placing one of his spirits, he moved his plank shield. I had a clear shot, but only for a small moment before the Regular realized what he’d done. I abandoned all ideas of my Bullet and quickly loaded a cannon. Steady… steady… I took a wild aim, and fired. 

Everything seemed in slow motion as the cannon traveled across the space where the ledges were. Slowly, the Regular’s head turned. He saw the cannon, but it was too late. The cannon hit the Regular’s head and I heard a sickening crunch that signaled that he was most certainly dead. I gave a relieved sigh. 

I felt bad killing so many lives. It didn’t feel right. Every mouse, no matter how evil, deserved to live. I was taking away their freedom of life to secure ours. That is the nature of war. I took a deep breath, then finished the Bullet. It might be of use on the front lines. 

I saw Pliked under my ledge. “Hey!” I called down. Pliked looked at me.   
“What?”  
“Send this Bullet up front, will you?”  
“Uh, sure.” He was uncertain, and I knew it was dangerous. I hoped that he wouldn’t be in too much danger. Meanwhile, I jumped down from my ledge and went to search for Tom. Soon enough, I found him tinkering with an arrow gun what was once in the hands of a Reg. “Hey, Tom,” I said.  
“Hey. Anything new?”  
“Killed some Regs.”  
“Nice, nice. I’m trying to make this gun work. It’s pretty useful for long distance shots.”  
“Keep trying. Send that to Crash,” I said, until I realized that I hadn’t tended to Crash yet. Shit! He had been seriously hurt, and I just hoped that Vlads would take care of him. But I needed to go over there, just in case. 

“Where’s Crash?”  
“Never mind,” I said.   
“Why?”  
“He’s… badly hurt.”  
“Oh,” Tom said with disappointment. “So… what’s up? What do you need?”  
“Some more mice. Regs are gaining ground, we need more defense and a couple more mice to take back our ground. We may lose this battle if we don’t get more rebels.”  
“Alright, I’ll take care of that,” Tom said. “You know those Runers in the middle of the field, right?”  
“Yeah, Crash told me. I’m going to get a group of rebels to take care of them.”  
“A’ight, see ya,” Tom said, running off. Would I see him again?

Without another minute’s notice I sprinted to where Crash was. Vlads hadn’t found him yet- he was still sprawled. His leg was twisted very badly, and a small trickle of blood flowed down his mouth. His lung was punctured. I swore under my breath, then kneeled down over Crash. 

“CRASH!” I yelled. He opened his eyes.  
“Holy crap, Simp,” he groaned. “Scared the living hell out of me.”  
“Screw that,” I remarked. “You all right?”  
“I’d be lying if I said yes. I think I twisted my leg pretty bad, and I think my… my…” He wheezed, and more blood came down his mouth.  
“Damn…” I groaned. “You’re bleeding, your lung’s punctured. Think your arm’s pretty banged up too. Come on, don’t die on me. You’re too tough.”  
“I… I can’t… can’t take this anymore,” he moaned. “I’m losing it here. Simp! SIMPLE!” he cried. 

“What?” I said, fighting back tears. Can’t cry. “Tell me.”  
“You… you can win this war,” Crash said. “You were meant to lead… the rebels into freedom. You were born to fight this war.”  
“Don’t say bull like that,” I said. “You sound like you’re gonna die, which you’re not.” Where the hell was Vlads?

“Nah,” Crash said, smiling. “I’m done. It’s better this way. I’ll be in peace.”  
“Bull. Shit. Don’t you die. Don’t die. Please. Please…” I said, letting the tears finally fall. 

“One more… thing… simple…” Crash told me. “It’s been nice knowing you… I have to tell you something…” he coughed, started to relax, and closed his eyes.  
“You’re…you…” he groaned.   
“Crash,” I said.   
“You’re Kero’s… Kerovan’s…”  
“Crash…!”   
“Ker… Ker. Kerovan’s.” He never finished the sentence.

I shook Crash, a limp body now. Devoid of life. “Why?” I said to no one in particular, softly. “Why?” I felt his pulse, but I already knew that I wouldn’t feel anything. My friend Crash was dead. 

Kerovan. The mouse that sparked the first Rebellions. I was Kerovan’s… what? What was he talking about? I would never know. I mourned Crash for a while, then slowly got up. I had to get a group to take care of the Runers… or maybe mice had done that already. Either way, I had to get to the central battlefield. We had a war to win.

As I traveled to the central field, and I was thinking about what had just happened, I suddenly stopped in my tracks. I could not quite believe it, but I was certain. 

Kerovan’s son. 

**4**

Could it really be true? Kerovan's... son? The chances were unlikely although the word felt right. What else could Crash have been talking about? I pondered this for a moment. I had the power to See, and I conjured the End in the battle at 801... but I don't think I could do that again. But I was their Leader. The timeframe matched. But it the idea still had many gaps and flaws. I decided that at the moment, it was not important and moved on. 

I couldn't believe Crash was dead. He was one of my favorite mice to be with. And now he was gone, somewhere in the fabled Void that we assume that all spirits go. His body will be destroyed, but his cause and spirit will live on. And it was our job to carry it for him.

So. Tommato was out getting hopeful reinforcements. I should send one or two more out just to secure more mice. Currently, the Regulars had stopped gaining ground but only for a little while. I guess we had about fifty-five percent of the field, while the Regs had the rest. Keith was hurt but not critically. I still do not know what happened with Chess. Pom and the others were trying their best to clear up the Runer group in the center of the field, for they were doing the most damage so far. They had a fairly helpless Attraction strategy that forced many of our rebels' lives to reach an unhappy end. Our Bullets were effective, but only slightly. We needed to defeat them.

All in all, it was basically madness. I had to be focused and alert everywhere I went to not get killed. It was a brutal world here. This would more or less determine the fate of the Mainland and who would control it. 

I picked a ledge close to the central field and started being productive by picking off Regulars from a distance. One Regular I saw seemed vaguely familiar- but I could not put a name on it. I aimed a spirit towards him, and only when the spirit knocked the Regular over and while I prepared a cannon that I saw his face and recognized him. It was Reaper, in a Regular uniform. Was he disguised to help the rebels, or had he become a traitor? I did not know. 

"Hey, Reaper," I called out. He turned his head towards me, shocked to hear my voice.   
"Hello there," he said slyly. He gave a sinister smile to me, so evil that if looks could kill then I would be in the Void faster than a Regular's cannon. I cringed. Was he really turning over to the other side?  
"Yellow, don't tell me that you're leaving us..."

"I've been thinking lately," he replied, "and my stats tell me that you don't really have much chance. So..." without another wasted second he whirled around in the air and shot a cannon at me as fast as lightning. I barely had time to dodge it when he set up a crate and another cannon. What was this? I'd never seen a Regular shoot cannons and conjure things as fast as him before. 

That was when I realized that he must be using the art of 'hacking', as we casually called it. It was much more scientific but we coined the term Hacking because it was much simpler to use. It was possible, if you were part of the Rebels, to access a particular code that the Creators or Council Leaders provide in order to enhance your capabilities. It was extremely unfair, but in times like these it was necessary. And I just dodged the cannons helplessly, barely avoiding each one. I will say this again, but it was madness. That asshole, deserting us like that...

I couldn't do anything with Reaper using some ungodly Conjuring hack so all I could do was to take cover behind my ledge. Soon enough, Reaper would stop firing because he would either get too tired or simply get bored. I waited for my chance to escape him.

The cannons stopped sooner than I thought. With such a high code I didn't think that he would stop already- he probably just got bored. I didn't take any chances though, and waited a while before slowly peeking one eye into where Reaper was. But instead of an evil face staring at me, there was Tommato, standing next to Yellow's seemingly dead body. I was surprised to see Tommato here in the first place, and even more surprised to see him over what looked like Yellow's lifeless body. 

"Tom?" I asked.  
"Oh, hey."  
"What are you doing here?"  
"Well, I got some mice and went for reinforcements. 42 and 44 are sending some mice, and I think 35's sending some too. We're good."  
"Nice... but how'd you get here so fast?"  
"I have my ways."  
I didn't question them. "Thanks... for saving me. I would probably be stuck here if you hadn't arrived."  
"No problem. I can always put some of my archery practice into use."

I couldn't help smiling. That Tommato was a very resourceful person. I had to hand it to him.  
But just when I finished that thought, I heard a small squeak and a shuffle. I looked out and saw Reaper stir and open his eyes. Tommato quickly got out his arrows and was poised to shoot, but I stopped him. "He can't hurt you," I said. "He's close to dead."

"Simple," he said, in a whisper.  
"Yeah?"  
"Guess what."  
"What?"  
"Chicken butt." And with that his eyes closed and fell into an eternal sleep. I closed my eyes and nodded in acknowledgement, then went to Tommato.

"What'd he say?" Tom asked.  
"Oh, the usual stuff he says normally. The old him's still there."  
"But he's dead."   
"Yeah."  
"Oh... well. I kind of miss him, but not really. I saw him shoot cannons at you and I was thinking, 'That traitor, son of a...-'"  
"Mice have their ways." I missed him too. I wished he didn't make a decision like that.

"So what's next?"  
"Well, neither of us knows what the hell's going on so let's get over to the central field and join our companions, eh?"  
"Good that. What about Crash? He knows everything."  
I paused for a moment, not wanting to break the news. "He's dead."  
Tom stopped. "What?"  
"You heard me."  
"But... how?"  
"Regular. Cannon. Enough said."

He seemed to take this in slowly, then nod. "Okay." I knew what he was feeling, because I felt the same things. I felt remorse for him and Crash. But right now, a Regular could come right now and kill both of us before we knew it. We needed to stay focused. I told Tommato this. He was stronger emotionally than me, because he just nodded and started walking. I sighed and continued on with him.

A mouse stopped us a while later, while we were walking to central field. "Excuse me!"  
The automatic thing I did was ask- "Whose side are you on?"  
He replied rather quickly. "I am the rebel base leader of 42, and my name is Homegood. And I think I can recognize your face, Simpleasthat."  
"I appreciate it. You're here for..."  
"Ah, this fellow right here-" he gestured to Tommato, who smiled brightly- "notified us of your situation and we decided to come with some other bases to help you with the cause."

"Obliged. Well..." I said, extremely happy. "If you're going to help, you're going the wrong way. This way, gentlemen, and let the real battle begin!"


	12. Mainland's Last

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Congratulations, if you've made it this far without any prior knowledge of Transformice, you've reached the point where it doesn't really matter anymore. Transformice is now very loosely based concept-wise, and the war has transformed into a more organic battlefield.

**1**

We walked quickly and efficiently towards the central field. Following me was Tommato, Homegood, and a good number of mice to aid us in our long, hard battle. I surprised myself by thinking that this ongoing crisis was getting almost boring. It was the same techniques, same things over and over. But then I reminded myself that many of my friends and comrades were dead, and they were not as lucky as me, who if you thought about it did not deserve to live. There were many better mice than me that lost their lives fighting for the cause today. I scolded myself for thinking such things and walked on. We passed light conversation as we traversed the woodlands that surrounded us. 

“So… how did your battle go, Homegood?” I asked.   
“Good enough. Many good mice died that day, but we emerged victorious. About twenty to two; the rest managed to escape us. They are probably here in 40 now.”

I nodded. “You’ve done many good things to secure our freedom.”  
“It’s not over yet,” he replied with a faint smile. “Not by a long shot.” Tommato trailed us and the reinforcement group, scanning for potential danger. Anyone could come and try to overtake us; we needed to be ready and alert for when that happened.

But the enemy never came. Finally, we arrived close to where the central field was. The woodlands had shrunk into a large plain, and the only cover we had were scattered vanilla outcrops in random places. We took a rest behind a medium-sized wall about two hundred meters away from where the action was. Even from this distance we could distinctly hear the whizzing cannons, the deafening spirits, and the battle cries of mice as they went to head-to-head combat. 

“What should we do now? Should we wait for more groups to come here, or just attack now?” I asked the group.   
“I think we should take cover around the vanilla ledges scattered around the field, and then attack. Let the other groups come later,” Tommato said. “We need to act now; the Regulars have gained much ground while we were gone.”

It was true. The field was now around 65% regular territory and the rest were hard-fighting rebels. If we waited any longer, the Regulars would overpower us. 

“Alright. But please,” I told the group, “Be careful. Try not to get noticed, or we may all perish.” I saw a small wave of nods. Satisfied, I made a small gesture with my hands and then scurried on to the next closest outcrop and stayed there until the rest of the group followed. This went on for several minutes, careful not to make any noise. Fortunately, the mice in battle were too busy fighting and did not notice us. After a while we were only fifty meters away from the central field. 

“Ready?” I mouthed to Homegood. He hesitated, and then finally gave me the OK signal. I took a deep breath, counted to three, and then raised my paw slowly. The group tensed, ready to pounce. After a moment, I finally shot my arm forward. With cheers and cries we jumped out and ran towards the field. 

The Regulars were expecting some kind of reinforcements to arrive, but not in surprise like this. They were taken aback for a moment before they regained themselves and targeted their spirits on us. 

The battle continued. Everything seemed in slow motion, and all my instincts from when I was a Runner were on full alert. I could sense when a Regular would conjure a cannon, and when a spirit was about to put one of our mice in danger. I conjured a ghost shield and hoped for the best. A couple meters away I saw a rebel fall off the edge of the field and fall. I cringed as I heard the mouse’s terrible screams, and then he became silent. The Scorching was still active. Shaken, I just stayed where I was for a while, under my shield, not doing anything. When I recovered I moved on.

What a terrible thing war was.

I had learned something new from watching my fellow mice. If your enemy starts to conjure a cannon, and you conjure another cannon at the same time, they will collide and cause no serious damage. I used this technique that required fast reactions to my advantage by effectively blocking some of the deadly missiles that were thrown at me. 

Soon, we were beginning to see results. The rebels stopped retreating, and started moving forward again with new confidence. The Regulars did not stop their attack, but started being more conservative and less risky with their weapons. 

I saw a Regular hovering right over a rebel. With the cruelest voice possible, the Regular snarled, “Say your last words now, for they will be your last.”  
With bold daring, the rebel replied, “Fuck you.”  
The Regular sighed. “Very well.” He started to conjure a cannon, right over the rebel. He was going to kill Ugomann! I gritted my teeth. Not on my watch, I thought. 

I ran forward and knocked the Regular aside. “Back off.” I set up a quick ghost plank and set up a crate. The Regular tilted his head to one side, and then smiled in the scariest possible way. The Regular actually looked like he was enjoying this. He took one step, and I took one step back. 

“Helping your little friend?” he asked casually.  
I didn’t reply.  
“Okay, here goes,” the Regular replied. And with a spectacular jump and twirl he conjured something that I had never seen before.

We called it Energy, but it wasn’t a good thing. Pretty much only the most experienced mice in the Realm could ever conjure such things. It was a beautiful sight, until you realize that the ball of burning energy could evaporate you in an instant. 

It was made through very special runes that when connected in a certain way, would react and transform into this. I quickly helped up a semi-conscious Ugo, and ran. No use fighting against this thing. The ball followed us at a leisurely pace; it had all the time it possibly needed. 

We ran as fast as our little legs could carry us. I thought that my lungs would burst, but I was too mortified to stop running from the menacing orb of death. Finally, we reached the edge of the field. Behind us was a cliff, and below was the deathly sea of lava caused by the Scorching. I remembered the horrible fate that befell my friend earlier, and was terrified. 

“This way!” I shouted, and ran to the left. Ugo followed me. However, the ball was too fast; it had us surrounded. It was enjoying this moment, I thought. That thing could kill us right now, but it wants to savor this victory. Better for me; the more times I felt my heart beat, the longer I was alive. 

“What do we do now?” asked an equally scared Ugomann.   
“What do we do? I don’t know!” I yelled. “This thing is going to kill us, and we’re going to be dead. Dead!” I curled up my paws into fists, deflated and frustrated. You’d think tears would come to my face, the fact that I knew I was going to die, but strangely they did not come. 

I looked at Ugo, and Ugo looked at me. We were trapped and we could do nothing. The ball seemed bored now and started advancing towards us. I took a step back…

…and tripped on a small piece of ledge that was sticking out of the ground. I gave a yelp and leaned backwards. I tried to regain my balance, but I was already falling. Time almost stopped as I started to fall towards the lava below. It’s been a good life, I thought. 

But instead, my arms reached out and managed to hold on, barely, to the edge of the cliff. I was hanging on the edge, with my legs dangling with a sea of lava hundreds of meters below me. I could not get up. I saw Ugo looking down, but I was too far away for him to reach me. I was not hanging from the top surface; I was a meter or two below that, on a small piece of rock jutting out of the cliff. What was I to do? I saw the Energy continue to move slowly towards Ugo. There was not much time left, and I could not hold on much longer. I closed my eyes.

“Simple!” Ugo shouted. I did not open my eyes, but replied. “What?”  
“It’s been nice knowing you,” he said. “You’re a good mouse.”  
“What are you trying to say?”  
“I’m trying to say… that if one of us makes it, we have to be free. For the future generation. For the mice that will come after us.”

I opened my eyes. The tears finally came. Here I was, having this conversation, dangling on a death cliff, with a supernatural ball of death approaching one of my closest friends. It seemed unreal, but this was reality. But I still did not understand.

“What are you going to do?” I managed to yell from below.  
“I’m going to get cake,” he replied. And as I looked up, I saw Ugo place a paw on his chest and the other towards the sky. He said something that I could not hear, and then he started to hover. Only a couple inches off the ground. But I was amazed. He had these powers? 

He looked at the Energy for a brief moment. The ball was only a few meters away now. And then he looked towards the sky. “Delicious, moist cake,” he said with a smile. He put his two paws together, and I saw something more extraordinary than any Anvil God I’d ever seen.

It was unlikely. Impossible. But it was happening in front of my very own eyes. A blue glow surrounded Ugo, and a blue ball of light was forming between his hands. It grew in size until it was the size of the Energy. Things started to attract towards the light, like a magnet. Wind was forming around Ugo. And I seemed to ignore my pain of holding onto the ledge and looked at this sight. I was unable to open my mouth; I could only just watch in awe. 

It was like a tornado now. I was barely safe from the wind; it was growing into a huge size. The beam of light grew even larger and larger, and soon it filled Ugomann’s whole entity. And finally he let go. The light shimmered and shrunk…

…and then it exploded with a deafening sound, and the Energy collided with Ugomann. It was hard to explain; it seemed like blue fire was surrounding the entire area of the cliff, including me. But it was painless, and I could not feel it. And then as quickly as it came, the blue fire disappeared, and the field was silent; at least where I was.

The first thought that registered in my mind was; How? What had just happened? It seemed like magic. It was the saddest, most spectacular, and most relieving thing I had ever experienced all at once. It was mind-blowing. How was it possible? I just kept shaking my head, swearing it was all a dream. But I still faintly heard the spirits and cannons from far away. We were off the main field; no one had noticed us. I just remained hanging there, not caring that there was deadly lava beneath me. I hung there for what seemed like forever.

A second thought crossed my mind. It seemed like a big magic trick; but it was real. Ugo- and the Energy- had disappeared. Ugo had sacrificed himself to destroy the Energy and give me a chance to survive. I shook my head. Why, Ugo? I thought. I didn’t deserve this. You deserved to be free, not me. 

But I calmed myself and began to get serious again. Maybe it was meant to be this way. Maybe fate meant for this to happen. I faced my current predicament; hanging limply on a ledge jutting out of a large cliff. I could barely feel anything in my arms for hanging on for so long. The lava did not cease to terrify me. But I believed now that maybe… if I had the strength, that I could climb to the top of the cliff. 

I began to swing myself back and forth from the ledge I was hanging on to. Soon enough, I was swinging at a good speed. I waited for my chance, and then gave all my might to swing high enough to land on top of the ledge. But it was no use; I wasn’t even close. That didn’t stop me from trying, however.

Three times I swung and missed. But I kept going higher and higher until I was almost level with the ledge now. I had to be extremely careful- I was all alone, and no one could find me here. And if I slipped on the ledge, I would fall to my unfortunate death. 

I sighed. I was running out of energy. My breath became short, and pain started creeping back into my arms. I knew that my time was up. My efforts had been in vain. I just hung there, swinging lightly, just shaking my head slightly. Could the rebels win without me? Were the Regulars this strong? 

I dropped one arm. I gave a small yelp and tried to hang on with two arms again, but I was too tired. My one arm began to slip. I thought, it’s too late. They have to win without me. But as I was thinking, a flashback came back to me. 

“I’m trying to say… that if one of us makes it, we have to be free. For the future generation. For all the mice that will come after us.”

And then I realized that I had to make this work. Ugo had said that not so long ago. I realized that it wasn’t mainly about the rebels getting our freedom; it was for all the mice that would follow us. So that they could be free as well. 

…and then like magic, the Feeling came. I smiled, greeting the Magik as it started flowing through my veins. I started swinging again. Soon, I was almost as high as the ledge. I put all my strength into one last swing, and then let go. I was airborne for a second, and then managed to land on the wooden ledge that I was hanging on a moment ago. I smiled. Thank you, Ugomann.

I looked above me. It wasn’t over yet. The only choice I had now was to Wall Jump- I had no other alternative. It was dangerous as well. It wasn’t a smooth cliff, but an old craggy one with many jagged edges. I wondered if I could pull off such a thing. But I surprised myself by wasting no time and starting to climb the wall right away.

There was about two meters to climb, but for a mouse like me that was a respectable height. Take it one by one, I thought. You’re in no rush. I felt unsafe, for I was alone by myself and no one that was near me. The rebels all probably think that I’m dead my now, that I fell off the cliff into the lava. I gave a sigh and heaved myself up onto the next small ledge. It was very similar to rock climbing that I had tried a couple of times when I was still home and not in this realm. 

One meter. The rock above me was impossible to climb, so I had to move sideways. I slipped on a rock, and it crumbled away under my foot. I almost lost it right then and there but managed to regain my balance. I continued to climb.

After some minutes I reached the top level of the cliff. I put one paw on the cliff, then two. I gave myself three seconds. One, two, three! I heaved myself up, and then crawled onto the field. I just lay there, too tired to move or speak. Then I heard voices coming towards me, and immediately looked their way. Were they friends or foes? If they were Regulars, I was dead. I was too tired to walk, let alone fight.

But as their figures became visible, I realized that they were familiar. They were rebels. I gave a sigh of relief, then stayed put as they crawled towards me.

“Simple?” said a shocked Pompomball.  
“One and only,” I managed to croak. “Too… too tired.”  
“We’ll help,” she said. “Can you walk?”  
“I might…” I said. I gave a huge effort to stand up; I couldn’t look weak. But after all Ugo and I had been through…

“Vlads’ll put you somewhere,” she told me. “We thought you… well, we didn’t see you or your body anywhere and…”  
“Fell off the cliff? Sort of. Very long story. I’ll tell you when…” I coughed. Surprisingly, I saw blood come out. But my lungs were more or less fine unless you count running from that Energy… why would I see blood? “I’ll tell you when we’re done with this battle.”

“That may still be a while,” Chesseo said. “Where’s Ugo?”  
I went silent.  
“Simple?”  
“Dead.”  
“No.”  
“Yeah.”

Chess just shook his head. “He can’t die. He wasn’t the dying type; he’d fight until the last bit of life was drained from him.”  
“I’ll tell you that story later, too,” I said. I wondered if I could explain what Ugo had done at the cliff. 

“Well,” Pom sighed, “You’ll have to recover for a while. You’re a bloody mess.” She handed me something called a mirror. They were rare around these parts, but you could find them if you knew how. I looked at myself and was surprised to see cuts, scrapes, and several wounds around my body. I wondered how I got them, and how I did not feel them.

“So what’s the situation?” I asked, strength finally returning to my legs.  
“It’s… interesting,” she replied. “If you can walk, follow me.”

 

**2**

I followed Pompom and the others back to the central field, yet again. But this time, there was no Ugomann beside me. Why would he do such a thing? And how did he have those powers? It was all confusing to me. How could I put it in simple words?

It seems that Ugo and I had run very far from the Energy, for it took a while for us to get back. But soon the familiar central field was visible, and it was clear that the battle had not yet ended.

“The battle’s been even more or less,” Pom told me. “But sooner or later, one side is going to run out of mice or energy and give up. We can’t let the Regulars take this base; it will mean the loss of the Mainland for us.”  
“The Main’s probably the most important key to taking over Transformice,” I remarked. It was definitely one of the biggest pieces of land out there.

“Well, do you think you can fight?” Pwnk asked me. “You’ve probably been through hell and back,” he said with pity on his face. Not me, I thought. Ugo. Poor Ugo. But I did have some serious injuries. But at the rate we were going, we needed every rebel we could. I wasn’t afraid to die anymore.  
“Yeah, I’ll fight.”  
“Alright… you sure?”  
“Positive.”

So we took a back route to our side of the battlefield, and then started to get back into the battle.

I almost couldn’t bear it. All around me were the bodies of mice; some rebels, some Regulars. I tried not to look, but sooner or later I could recognize a face of a mouse that I knew well, pierced or killed by a Regular’s arrow or cannon. Such a loss of life startled me even now, when we were so far into this war. Given the circumstances, why wasn’t I dead yet? I could fight, but there were better fighters than me who had died. I decided that fate did not want me to leave this earth yet.

What was death like? I thought to myself. What would the feeling be? Would you experience eternal pain, or would it all melt away and feel at peace? Would it be pitch black, or was there an afterlife somewhere? All this thinking and worrying made my head hurt. I ignored the pain and moved on.

In the next hour, the battle would be decided. There were only fifty or so mice on each side of the field, and there was no sign of any additional reinforcements. We had to make a plan, a good plan that would somehow defeat the Regulars in this battle of Vanilla 40… once and for all.

I gathered about five of our group together, leaving the rest out on the field; me, Chesseo, Pompom, Tommato, and Homegood. Keith, Vlads, Smoof, and some others were still hanging in there. Vlads had temporarily quit nurse duty and went out to join in the fight.

Homegood was the least supportive out of all of us. “Half of my mice are either dead or running away. Got any good ideas?”  
“Well, it’s about even so far,” I said. “Twenty on both sides… we need to find a way to make that unbalanced. If we could minimize their group to only about ten or fifteen, we could overtake them.”  
“They’ve got pretty good defense, and their attack is relentless. We can only hold on for so long.”

I thought for a minute. How could we break them? We stayed there for a while, trying to think up a way to beat the Regulars. But nobody could come up with a solution. Their attack and defense were too strong. It seemed that we would lose this battle.

I looked out to the distance. Night was approaching. It would get dark soon. We needed to finish this; it was now or never. I looked at the flat expanse of the field and I sighed.

Chesseo spoke. “I’m going to draw this so we can figure out what to do.” He found a stick lying around the ground and drew in the dirt.

He first drew a large rectangle, the general area of Vanilla 40. “We’re here,” he said, pointing to a spot a while south from where the battle was. He marked another, smaller rectangle that stood for the central field. The rebels were on the south side, the Regulars on the north. They had set up clever contraptions all around their side of the field and only leaving the south section of their side open so that they could fight. We had basically the same thing on our side, but our attention was more focused on attacking the Regulars’ base and not defending our side. It was a miracle how the Regulars didn’t focus on attacking our base. We stared at the crude diagram for a while.

I looked at the situation. They had good all-around defense, and all of our mice’s attacks are only equal to some of the Regular’s defense. I kept thinking, but I could not find an answer. “I give up,” I said. “Got any ideas?”

“I don’t really know,” said Tommato. “All of our mice’s attacks aren’t doing anything. We’re just hanging on here. We have the same number of mice, but they have more skill than us.” The others could not find a way to breach the Regulars’ area as well.

I was about to just call it quits and head back and just try our best when I looked at the diagram one last time. A thought started to grow in my head, and an idea came to me that I couldn’t see before. It was like I was blinded by a veil, but now the veil had been lifted and I could now see. My eyes widened. Would this work?

“Come on,” I said, and started walking back to the field.  
“We’re just going to fight?” Homegood asked.  
“No. I have a plan.”  
“You wanna tell us?”  
“When we get there. It might not work, but it’s the only choice we have!”

I’d been walking and traveling a lot these past couple of days. I went all the way to Vanilla 40 from 67, went back and forth constantly in the battlefield, ran from deadly balls of Energy, and spent a good couple of miles walking from the field to here and back. I wasn’t the strongest mouse out there- I was extremely tired. But I made this last effort and traversed the woods back to the central field, one last time.

“Ok, so here’s the plan,” I told the group. “We’re going to bring in all of the rebels who are out there fighting but leave a couple out there still just to keep them busy. We’re going to go all the way to the edge of your side of the field, leave a few mice there, and then go around to the Regulars’ side.  
“The Regulars will follow us into our side, but they’ll be cautious and go slowly because they will think it’s a trap. We’ll leave some mice there as bait…” I paused. “Not bait. Sorry. Not bait, just… strategic waypoints,” I said with a small chuckle. I looked at the group. They looked reluctant to do this plan the moment I said bait. Idiot.

However, I went on. “The main part of the Regulars will be focused on fighting the couple of mice on our side. The majority of us, however, will be long gone. We’ll send a good number of mice to work on controlling what should be a generally weak Regular base, and the rest of us will come up from behind and finish off the majority of Regulars that’d be fighting on our side.”

We went quiet for a while. The group still looked at me and I realized that they thought that I wasn’t done. “I’m done.”

We still went silent though, digesting what I had suggested. Homegood spoke.

“It sounds like a farfetched plan, but it’s the best one we’ve got. But the… ‘bait’ you mentioned…”  
“Don’t worry. I’ll make sure you guys aren’t part of that group,” I said with a small smile. However cruel that sounded, the group let out a small sigh of relief. “We’d come back and finish the Regulars off though, remember?” I added. Still of course, nobody felt like volunteering. I’d just select random mice from the group still out in the field.

“So? What do you think?”  
“I approve of this,” Pom said.  
“Same here,” added Chess.  
“Yep.”  
“Aye.”  
“Then we’re off,” I told the group. “Come on then!”

We got to our edge of the field. “We need someone to signal them to retreat,” Chesseo said.  
“I’ll do that. We’ll go a couple of mice at a time, and leave 10 mice still out there on the field. You guys will tell the group our plan, and then start moving out to the far end of the field. I’ll catch up with you.” They nodded, and I started out for the field.

I could die here. Easily. Cannons were whizzing about in every direction. A spirit could knock me down and leave me vulnerable to a simple, well-aimed arrow.

If I died, the plan would never work. I moved stealthily, trying to remain hidden, signaling one by one for our mice to retreat. Some protested, and I admired their spirit. But eventually they gave in and moved back.

The Regulars were pretty much oblivious to what was going on, for they were too concentrated in battling our best fighters, which we left out on the field. They would give us precious time and they’d no doubt defeat a couple of Regulars as well.

However, once we got to around fifteen mice on the field, the Regulars sensed that something was going on. I hurriedly got three more mice with me, and then told them to bolt. We had to start moving, now! On the corner of my eye I saw the Regulars starting to talk amongst themselves. No doubt they were going to follow us. I also saw Turbo strike another Regular and watch him fall to the ground. With a smile I lagged behind the three mice in front of me, making sure that we had ample time to run. Was this plan even going to work? It was a one in a hundred chance, and that was with some generous rounding.

I shouted to the mice in front of me. “Go! I’ll catch up with you.” I slowed my pace to a walk. I had an idea that would buy us a little more time.

We were entering the woods area again, and I think with a bit of clever Magik I could create a good obstacle for the Regulars to puzzle over. I found a place on the path that was surrounded by tall, thick trees. I sighed, and then concentrated on the bases of the trees. I felt the tingling Magik run through my blood up to the tips of my fingers, and then I let the Magik go.

I sent a barrage of sharp arrows all around me. They impaled the bases of the trees around me, and at a respectable depth. I began to load some cannons. When I had enough, I brought my Magik out again. I took a deep breath, and then in one swift motion I released the cannons outwards.

The cannons flew at the trees and collided heavily, making an enormous sound like roaring thunder. The Regulars would probably hear this, but it wouldn’t matter. I listened carefully in the silence. Seconds passed and I was afraid that my plan did not work. But then I heard a creaking of wood. I looked up and saw that the trees were falling inwards towards me. I sprinted to dodge the trees, and made it just in time and the trees fell and blocked the path with a thud. Satisfied, I moved on. That would take a while to clear up.

I ran quickly. Half an hour passed, and I assumed that the Regulars would be at my block in the path by now. I quickened my pace, and soon caught up to Yonwood, Kateer and Mini. “You guys were ok? Nothing happened?”  
“Not yet,” Mini replied. “How much farther up the path?”  
“Only ten more minutes or so at this pace,” I assured the group.

We were tired, and couldn’t keep our pace. But we got to the far edge of our field eventually. I saw the group waiting on the far side.

“Hey!” Homegood exclaimed. “You’re here. We thought something happened, what took you so long?”  
“I made something to keep the Regs at bay for a while, but it won’t buy us much time. You got the mini group?”  
“Yeah.”  
“Good, so let’s start going out and we’ll come back to catch the Regulars by surprise.”  
“Exactly.”

I looked at the group that Homegood and the others had picked. They looked fearful and scared. Did our group tell them that they were bait?  
“You’re the most important group of mice we have right now,” I told them. “Be proud, because I couldn’t be happier with that you’ve accomplished. We’re going to come back for you. Don’t worry.” That seemed to lift their spirits a bit, but I knew that they were still afraid. I sighed. “For the cause.”

I went back to our main group. “Let’s go.” And we started out for the middle of nowhere, not knowing where we were going, just knowing that we were going to return.

. . .

Thirty minutes had passed since we decided to stop at this small clearing in the middle of the woods. We had no idea if the Regulars had reached the waypoint group yet, but we needed to start going back now. It could already be too late. We sent a few mice over to the central field again, to check the situation back there. So here we go. I ask myself this over and over, but will this plan work?

I look up at the sky and see white clouds moving along. The weather is always the same here. There is never rain, just occasional clouds moving along on their set course in the sky chosen by the Creators who made them.

I wish I knew my own set course.

**3**

We hid up on the various trees. We were situated on the edge of the clearing, secretly watching the waypoint group. The group out on the clearing seemed anxious but determined. I admired their acceptance of the dangerous role given to them, and their understanding. They knew that this had to be done. They could not see us camouflaged with the various leaves and branches. We'd climbed high enough; our body structure had very high dexterity, allowing us to climb and maneuver around difficult obstacles while making minimal noise. The waypoint group hadn't even heard us stealthily climb up the forest trees and listen to the group's every move. 

What was the situation like back on the central field? Were the rebels doing ok?

Meanwhile, the Regular group that was supposed to arrive was late according to our estimated schedule. They were supposed to come half an hour ago. "Maybe they took a long time trying to get past your little barrier," Cocoaone had told me. I doubted it. They could get past that trap I placed in a blink of an eye. If we had good dexterity, theirs were extraordinary.

Still, we didn't lose hope. We still believed that the Regulars would come, and we would be ready. The waypoint group would act as bait... but not helpless bait. While they were distracted by them, we would attempt to take them by surprise and hopefully eliminate most of the Regulars that were still on 40. I knew that this could very well be the deciding battle of the Main; it had been several months now. This was it. There was no turning back now. 

Bring it.

\- - -

An hour passed, then two. We were growing impatient, tired, and uncomfortable. Trees really aren't the best place to rest. First, there's the sharp branches. Then there's the itchy leaves, and to top it off this place was a bug infestation. But these were minor compared to what would come.

The waypoint mice were now on the ground, tired of standing and just sitting there. Some had taken a nap. I put myself in their perspective and I understood their impatience. It was extremely difficult to wait for something for more than an hour that could very well kill you on the spot.

Just when we were starting to think that this was hopeless and the Regs would not arrive, we heard the faintest rustling in the woods up ahead. Were they friends or foes? I struggled to get a closer look from the trees. Was this it? 

There was silence for a while. I began to think that it was nothing... 

And then the clearing exploded with a great boom, and I knew that they had arrived. There was a sharp intake of breath from our secret group in the trees. They had come with the works. Magik assists, rune pouches, cannon and spirit MDs. It was a fairly large group as well, with about 15; if we weren't with the waypoint group, they'd be toast. Below, our small group quickly found their Magik assists and stood to meet the Regulars. I started to doubt our chances.

A Regular whose name I do not know- his name might have been Soak- spoke. "Hello there."  
The group did not utter a word.

"So it seems that we've found your little... hiding place," Soak continued. Still the group did not answer. They had their weapons, ready to unleash them at any moment.   
"Nothing in return? Cat got your tongue?" he asked, a popular expression around here for obvious reasons. "Alright then; I'll assume that you can hear me if not talk. We know that you're not the only ones here. There are others, hiding maybe, or in another part of the base.

"We have taken Central Field. We have secured the entire base. Your rebels are no match for us. If you surrender to us, we might let you live. If you tell us where the rest of the group has gone, we'll let you go for sure." He sounded sincere, but I knew that they were all lies. I bit my tongue to keep from calling out and continue to watch. Meanwhile, my paw started to rise up, as a 'get ready' signal. 

Finally, Finnys spoke. "We don't know where they went," the shy mouse said.  
"Lies!" Soak shouted. "You know where they are. Tell me, and you will be saved."  
"It's the truth."  
"Don't test me."  
"I can and I will."

Soak was on the verge to ending her life then and there; but then he relaxed. "Suddenly got your speech back, huh?" he said, amused. "Good, then. Regulars? Please take that mouse right there." Soak pointed to a trembling mouse whose name I did not know. Pwnk, I think. They seized Pwnk and brought him to our side.

“A fine, young mouse. Unfortunately for him, he is about to meet his death. Slowly and painfully,” said Soak with a sadistic, menacing grin. The Regulars in the group shared light smirks. “Start.”

They got out a black powder from their assist packs. The substance was foreign to me; I did not know what it was. All I knew was that it was not good, and I had to stop this. But my paw did not go forward. I held it up, signaling to stay put for now. Finnys went quiet, scared into silence, just watching.

They shoved Pwnk down onto his knees. They took a portion of the black powder onto their paws, and then sprinkled the powder onto Pwnk’s backside. I cringed at the thought of what would happen. The power shimmered on his back, and then started to sizzle. I realized that the powder was meant to burn- right through his flesh, until Pwnk could not take it anymore and die in vain. I couldn’t let that happen. I was going to give the release signal until Finnys shouted, “STOP!”

They paused, looking at Soak. He nodded and said, “Stop.” They lowered their arms. Pwnk was still moaning in pain, severely burned. How did they acquire that powder? How are they able to use such destructive things?  
Soak looked at Finnys. “Tell us. Where they are.” I could barely make out him muttering, “I’m losing my patience.” Lip-reading can be helpful in the most crucial moments.

Finnys was stuck. She couldn’t tell them where we were, but if she didn’t, Pwnk and gradually the others would all die. I felt pity for her and the task that was put upon her. I couldn’t bear watching anymore. I look at Homegood next to me and nodded to him. He nodded back. It was time. 

Slowly I raised my paw and waited. I took a deep breath. This was it. Three. Two. One. And with a final sigh, I extended my arm forward. 

The motion was in unison and done instantaneously. Everybody had been watching my paw, waiting for it to go down. And when it did, we jumped out of the woods and charged. Finnys and the others knew that we would come, but not in this manner. She and the others jumped away and joined us. Soak and the others, meanwhile, were taken aback. They too had been awaiting an ambush, but not so closely. They certainly weren’t waiting for us to come out of the trees. 

With a roar, I got out my cannon faster than ever before. I saw an open Regular and threw all my Magik that I could into that one cannon. With a blur, it collided with the Regular and the mouse fell over, unconscious and soon to be dead. Around me, I saw the battle taking place; one surprised Regular falling after another. 

The plan was working. It was actually working! I couldn’t believe it, but I kept my head in the battle and barely dodged a rune’s current. Black powder was released in the distance, and I stayed away from that area. I was hit directly with an arrow, but it wasn’t serious. One by one, we saw the Regulars fall. Oh, our mice fell too. But who would win this battle in the edges of the forest was becoming clear.

I went to Tommato, and we formed a back-to-back duo, covering each other with shields and firing cannons in both directions. The entire scene was madness. Pompom, Homegood, and Chess formed another trio group.

Soon, the Regulars found their groove and the element of surprise wore off. But their numbers were low, and we outnumbered them by far. Soon, there were only three Regulars left that were alive on the battlefield. Many had died, and some had managed to escape. But these were the three left, one of which was Soak. We had ten good mice left, with the rest retreating for their own safety. Tommato left me and went to join the others. I stayed behind, checking to see if there were still rebels that were not yet dead, but unconscious. While I was inspecting the sad aftermath of what had happened, I heard a rustling of leaves. 

“So. Here you are. Just us left in this forgotten part of the woods,” Soak said with a smirk.   
“Nice to meet you,” I said with sarcasm. “Beautiful day.”  
“I agree,” Soak replied, and sidestepped to create a surprise cannon. Trying to one-up me. But I saw this coming and calmly stepped out of the way, dodging it easily. I made a ghost plank and anchored it before Soak could make a new one. I smiled, trying to make this seem like I was in total control. Which I wasn’t.

Soak was stuck. If he tried to make a cannon or a shield, my loaded cannon would hit him first. I was ready to strike, but Soak had good speed. He would dodge my cannon and make another one in time. We just stood there, in a stalemate, waiting for someone to act.

The artificial sun made its way out of the trees, and shined over us. I knew that this was now or never. With the quickest motion of my arms, I flew the cannon over to Soak. He saw it coming, and dodged. He then made another cannon. I quickly made a spirit and conjured it just in time to stop a whirling cannon flying towards me. I stepped out of the shield- I didn’t have any angle here.

I made another spirit and flew myself, then made a crate and anchored it just before Soak sent a flying crate towards me. I ducked under my crate, just in time. A fraction earlier and I could have very well been killed. I hid behind the crate, silently loading a cannon. 

“Come out… you can’t hide forever,” Soak said calmly. He was out in the open. He didn’t know that I had a cannon ready to shoot, I realized. He was waiting for my next move. He had a cannon, but I could tell that he didn’t have a shield. It would be a quick draw.

I sighed. If I was going to die, I would die fighting. I gave myself a count of five. Five… four… three… two… one. On the last second, I flew out from behind my crate, and shot my cannon. Soak was ready, and shot his cannon the moment he saw me fly out from behind the crate.

Slow-motion. I was diving to my left, Soak standing. Our cannons barely passed each other, nearly colliding. Time stopped as I froze in midair, with Soak’s expression turning from mild to fear and the cannon sped closer and closer. I could only manage to dive as his cannon was hurtling towards me…

And everything resumed in real time, and I barely dodged the cannon. I watched as my cannon hit Soak’s chest, and he flew backwards with shock on his face. I lay there, unbelieving. I could very well be the luckiest mouse in the realm, or Kerovan had meant for me to survive.

I got up, brushed the dirt from my legs, and walked over to where Soak lay. It looked as if his ribs were broken, his lungs punctured. He would not live. 

“Soak,” I said.  
He made a noise that I couldn’t make out.  
“Soak,” I said again. I pitied him. The pain he must be experiencing… it must be unbearable. I realized what I had to do. I loaded a cannon. Facing downwards. It hovered, ready to shoot.

His face showed surprise for a moment, but then his face relaxed. I think I could make out his head giving a nod. He uttered something, but I could not hear. He said it again, and this time I could read his lips. He was trying to say, Yes. Please. 

I knew that this would end his suffering. I smiled. “It’s been nice knowing you.” I hesitated, unsure whether to proceed, but then released the Magik. I looked away, not bringing myself to see. I never saw Soak’s figure again; I walked away and towards our small group. They did not know that I was gone, too busy with the other two Regulars.

Upon seeing me, they realized that I had gone. “Simple!”  
“Hey,” I said with a slight smile. I looked around and saw no Regulars. My smile grew wider. “No Regs.”  
“One escaped, one gone. Into the Scorch,” Chesseo told me. I nodded. “Where were you?”

Two words came out from my mouth. “Soak’s dead.” That was enough explanation. “Wow. We really did it.”  
“Yeah… I didn’t know if it would work, and it was a one in a thousand chance…” Pom said.  
“But it did work. The Regulars are gone. We’re going to take this base, and with it the Mainland,” Tommato said. “We’ve won.”

I couldn’t have been happier. A single tear fell. Just one. Of joy.  
“But what about the Regulars in Central Field?”  
“We can take most of the group out there. There are less than ten over there- we can take them.”  
“Then what about the rest of us?” I asked. I felt that they weren’t telling me something.

Pompomball spoke. “We’re thinking about making a small group and leaving the Mainland.”  
My smile turned into a frown. “What?”  
“I think you heard.”  
“But… we’re so close to taking the Mainland. We can’t just leave now!”  
“Even if we leave, the victory of Vanilla 40 means that we control the entire central area of the Mainland. If we just keep this base secure, the rebels can take the Main without us,” Homegood explained.

I thought about it and realized that they were right. It made sense. We still had the other dimensions to look over, and the Badlands were still left. “All right.”

“We were thinking about taking a group of fifteen or so and going to the Fourth,” Chesseo said. “Us and ten others. It’s the next powerful dimension other than ours, and we need to find out what the other dimensions are doing.”  
“Sounds good,” I said. We were really leaving the Mainland. This was the final time I would see this place.

“You know,” I told the Delta group, “We’ve come far. I can’t believe that this is really happening. It all seems to go by so fast. I don’t know what my emotions should be, happy or surprised or…”

Silence. Then someone’s voice.

“This war’s not over.”


	13. The Badlands

**1**

The Magik coursed through my inner self, and I let the Magik go. Dimensional Magik was, as always, a challenge. But I had improved over the last few months, and it did not require as much effort. I let myself drift out of the Second Dimension; and into the Fourth. I felt myself being transferred into one place into another, and I came to.

The original mice that came to this land called it Kongregate, after the element that they believed made up Magik, Kong. Its main inhabitants were strictly Badland Runners; their Mainland was dead and decaying. However, their Badlands were more prominent than any other Dimension. That was why we were here; to control the Badlands. 

I did not like the idea of Running the Badlands. I did not have fond memories of the maps that I encountered while there. Lava was common, and the entire place was dangerous and rocky. It was not just regular wood like the many maps in the Mainland.

But we’d faced more difficult obstacles before; I believed that if we could win the Mainland, we could take the Badlands too. Slowly, we’d take every base and eventually win the war. But the truth was that this was not easy, and the chances of us failing were definitely higher than the chances of us winning this war. 

Have I ever said that war is a horrible thing?

I’ve gone off on a tangent. We landed onto the Fourth, our Magik spent. Some of us were sweating, like me. Others seemed fine. We couldn’t go back now, though; we were too tired.

“So. Here we are,” Cocoa said.

We weren’t at the Badlands yet. Right now, we were still in the Mainland, here a deserted wasteland. There was nothing in sight except the base in front of us, Vanilla 49. We were on the western edge of the Mainland, for the Badlands were towards the west. We’d have to traverse the space in between; but what used to be water was now deadly lava because of the Scorching. We’d have to use airships or another form of air transportation. The Running cycle, obviously, had been broken; so we couldn’t just Run the courses and hope that we arrive at a Badland sooner or later. We had to physically travel there. 

Airships were peculiar things. Sometimes, they flew perfectly and you had a perfect, calm ride. But sometimes, if you’re just a little bit off on your building, the ship goes haywire, turning into what we call the ‘failship’. If we were to consider this as an option, we had to build these airships with extreme precision, or in the worst case scenario we could all fall into the lava below.

We looked down at the lava below us, and then looked at each other.

“Well, this a’int going to be easy,” Son said. “We need some kind of way to get across over the air.”  
“Or unless you have some kind of build that’s lava proof,” said Chesseo with a small hint of sarcasm.

“We have a couple of options,” I said. “One; build a bridge across.” A few people in the group chuckled. “Alright, I thought so too,” I admitted. It was a silly suggestion, building a bridge a few miles long. “Number two; use balloons.” This made more sense, but it had a lot of ways to go wrong as well.   
“Wind can play a huge role in balloons,” Cocoa said. “It has little room for error.”  
“Then we can do number three,” I replied. “Airship.”

Murmurs. “It’s probably going to turn into a failship and kill all of us,” Homegood said. “Seldom have I ever seen a smooth ride on an airship.” There were nods of agreement at this.

“But they were inexperienced,” I countered. “They didn’t build the ship right. If we all pitch in, we can build a large, stable ship that fits all of us.” Everybody still didn’t seem sure, so I added, “It’s the only choice we have left. We can’t turn back now!”

“Simp’s right, unfortunately,” Pom said. “This is our best bet. It’s the only choice we have.”   
“I agree.”  
“Aye.”  
“I still don’t think this is a good idea,” Homegood said. And he was probably right. We had a good chance of failing this. I was nervous to do this, but we had to.

“Alright,” I said, “Raise your paw if you think we should build a bridge.” Nobody raised a single paw.  
“Raise your paw if you think we should use balloons.” One, two, three, four.  
“And say aye if you think we should build an airship.” The chorus of voices convinced me. We were going to build the ship.

We later decided that we should build two separate airships. It’d be more risk, but just in case one fails the other group could survive. It was a better alternative than having one large airship and having us all perish if we did not build the ship correctly. It was an ominous thing to think about. 

We started to build, two separate teams working on two similar airships. We made sure that everything was exactly in place. A few millimeters off, and the ship could fail on us. We conjured these planks first, and then carefully fitted them with anchors. It was a lot of effort, and beads of sweat rolled down our faces. We talked to each other softly, but other than that the only noise that I could hear was the clanking of the planks and the ghost-like wind occasionally coming through the desolated Mainland. 

Soon, I could see a vague skeletal structure in the ship; and after a few hours we finished the skeleton of the ship. Now we only had to cover the outside, and we would be flying away from here. The other group was just finishing their skeleton. 

I accidentally brushed up against the side of Sabusha while I was placing one of the outside planks, and we looked at each other, startled. I could not help looking into her eyes and feeling something inside my gut, a longing. But then I turned my head, and the moment lasted no more.

I really hoped that we didn’t mess up our calculations. This kind of airship was the sturdiest one, but that didn’t mean that it couldn’t fail. There were lots of internal parts to the ship that could break or bend, and that would be the end of our journey.

The ship had three parts; an internal skeleton to hold the ship together and support our massive weight, an outer covering to reinforce the strength of the ship, and a serious of boxes to attach balloons to. As dark was falling, we were just finishing up the ship. One piece remained; a Guide Rune inside the ship that would give us a sense of direction and balance the ship. We combined the Rune with our Magik spell, and I took the Rune in my paws. 

“Do you think that we’ll make it?” Sabusha asked me as I walked over to the ship.  
“I honestly don’t know,” I replied, placing the Rune into the core of the ship. “We’ll have to wait and see.”

Dark was here, and we could not see very well. We would have to stay here on the Mainland overnight and set sail first thing in the morning. The second group had just finishing placing their Rune into the ship. The night was cold, colder than the liveliness of my Mainland. Few Runners passed through here, I could tell. It was abandoned and forgotten; the main capital of Kongregate was the Badlands.

As I lay on the ground, looking up into a sky of nothingness, I thought I could see a shooting star soaring across the sky. But when I blinked, the star was gone. I sighed, and slowly drifted off into a restless sleep.

. . .

We’re checking everything now to make sure that we’re leaving nothing behind; all our gear, our Magik assists, and belongings. A couple Runners are checking over both ships to make sure that everything is where they need to be and that nothing is misplaced. When we can see clearly in the light, we will fly and hopefully reach the Badlands, to the west. 

I’m nervous. Something in the air doesn’t feel right. I assure myself that it’s going to be alright, but I have a strange feeling about this. I just can’t quite put my tongue on it. I’ll have to go with it. When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.

Now, we can see clearly and the sky is a clear blue. I gesture towards the ships. “I guess it’s time to start boarding.”

The lava is plainly visible over the cliff of the Mainland. We can’t turn back now, though. The ships are set, and we’re ready to go. “I guess this is it,” I say.  
I see Chesseo next to me. “You may not ever see your Mainland again.”  
“Maybe, maybe not.”

“When we… if we get to the Badlands, then what’ll we do?” I say.  
“We’ll find the Rebel leader of the Badlands, and we’ll go from there.”  
“And then what? Do what we did in the Mainland, blindly attacking every base and losing so many of our comrades?” A pause. “And the Mainland was only the beginning. They’ll have stronger Regulars now. Better mice.”  
Chesseo sighed. “I don’t know.”

“I wonder why I’m your Leader,” I say sadly. “Why was I chosen? I’m not of use to anyone.”   
“Simp…”  
“If I could, I want to step down. I want to give someone else my job. It’s not in my place.” But as I criticized myself I knew that someone had to lead the mice, and somehow the best rebel for the job was me. I don’t know why. But I had led the rebels since the war started. I had started the tribe Rebellion, although it was shut down. We won the Battle of 801, and I still wonder how I conjured the End. 

Chesseo pats me on the back. “These are hard times. It’s alright.” He walks away, helping the rebels board the ships.  
I wish I had Chesseo’s personality; brave, bold, and wise. 

\---

I conjured the balloon on our ship, and slowly but surely we began to rise. First only a couple inches, but then Pompom added more balloons and now we were lifting off high into the air, the wind whipping at our faces. I turn towards the back of the ship and see a large group of mice riding what could be the most carefully built airship in existence. Everything was triple-checked and then checked again. It was easy to believe that nothing could go wrong now, with the Guide Rune pointing towards the east and the light of day shining on your face. But there was still a large room for error. We will just have to wait and see.

The second ship is flying alongside us, a pair flying across what we called the Open. A vast, endless sea of water (now lava) that stretched for miles. We could feel the warmth of the lava below us, its heat being even more noticeable when you bend over the side of the ship and smell the steam that rises up from the Open. More balloons make us fly even higher, and it gets colder and colder. Soon, the balloons are leveled out with anchors making our elevation leveled.

A mile in, the lava gets less concentrated. I saw that the lava had turned into a boiling sea of water. You could still die easily from this temperature, but now the sea resembled the water that it was before the Scorch. 

As we flew silently, the Mainland now gone from our field of view, I realized where all that lava came from. It starts with regular water at the exact center of the Open and other places. But as you go further in towards the landmasses, there were lava deposits that the Creators must have opened that now flowed throughout the entire Boundary. Still, no place was safe, even the source where the original water was flowing. 

Hours later, while I was taking a nap slumped on the side of the ship, I felt a creaking of wood. I opened my eyes and awoke with a start. Please tell me this wasn’t happening, I thought to myself. Please no. 

But as the creaks got louder and louder, and as more and more mice noticed that something wasn’t right, I realized that the sounds weren’t coming from our ship. Then where was the sound coming from? And then I knew.

I whirled to my right, and I saw the second ship beside us begin to tilt. It shook slightly, and didn’t pose any serious problem now. But not for long.

“The second ship to our right!” I shouted. “It’s tilting! 3 o’clock!” We were too far away to pull the ships together, but we could always steer. I ran as fast as I could to the Rune, the others moving away for me. “Go towards the ship!” I told Cocoa with an urgent voice. “NOW!” 

They could all die now. I buried my paws into my face. Why did this have to happen?

The shaking became much more violent now. On the other side, I could see the mice scrambling to conjure balloons in the hope of hanging on before the entire ship tilted and sank. Fear and panic were on their faces. I sadly knew that despite our efforts, we wouldn’t reach the ship in time. 

Shouts came from all areas of the ship, preparing rescue attempts and gear. Long ropes were set up, and our team raced to help the other ship. But it was going to be a long shot. Already the second ship was tilted maybe twenty degrees now, and the ship shook and trembled with a new vigor. Could we save some of those mice?

And then I got an idea.

The ship was falling now. Slowly for now, but soon it would plummet into the lava below. “Bring her down!” I told Cocoa before I rushed to starboard.

It wouldn’t work effectively, but it was the best chance we had. We couldn’t catch up to the ship now, not without risking our own demise. “I’m going to try something dangerous,” I told the mice around me whose names I couldn’t care less, “But please, please don’t go in the portal.” I had a deep breath, and then conjured the blue portal next to me.

Portals are peculiar things. They could bend space in ways that you couldn’t imagine. They had the special property to teleport things to far distances in an instant. This was extremely risky, and maybe I would die, but if it was for the cause I did not care. 

This next shot would require ridiculous accuracy. I hoped to nail the portal somewhere around where I was trying to aim it. Portals on surfaces were one thing; portals suspended in the air were quite another. 

I tried to focus on the second ship, now quite a few meters away, and let the Magik free. I watched the orange portal sail across the space between the two ships and finally land where the ship was, in the air. Next to me, the cloudy blue portal became clear and now I saw the interior of the second ship. One instinctive mouse dived through the orange portal before even I had the chance to. His face was dripping with sweat and his face was filled with immense relief. He put his hands on my shoulder. “Thank you,” he managed to say before he slumped to the ground unconscious. I had no time to take care of him.

“Vlads,” I told the nurse, “Take care of this guy and please tell Cocoa to stop the ship from moving. Make sure nobody else on this ship comes, please?” And I dove through the blue portal. 

I came out the orange portal and barely made it onto the now wild ship. It shook so hard that I could barely balance myself onto the ship’s deck. It was tilted at around thirty degrees now. It’d slip soon.

The ship was moving, so the orange portal was moving further away. I directed the orange portal at a wall so that it’d move with the ship. The portal stuck. 

“EVERYBODY IN!” I shouted at the frenzy of mice, who looked up at me with surprise. I dove through the blue portal, but just before I saw a poor mouse slip off the side of the ship and fall to the lava below. 

Slowly, the mice rolled in. Eleven, twelve, thirteen… so far, my attempt at rescue was going surprisingly well. Except for… that mouse. I let one tear escape from my eyes. I only wished that I could have done this sooner. Our ship was tending to the mice who had come through the portal, dazed and exhausted. 

One more time, I thought to myself, and with adrenaline coursing through me I entered the blue portal one last time. 

The ship was now tilted at 45 degrees. Now, only a few mice were left. But they had been injured beyond repair. I still slid down the ship to carry their unconscious bodies towards the portal, however. I couldn’t leave these poor mice behind. I heaved their bodies through the portal. 

But just before I thought that these were the only ones left, I saw a mouse come out of the steering station. I recognized his face. His name was Pwnk, the mouse who had been injured by the Regulars’ black powder days before. 

“Come on!” I shouted at him. “There’s not much time le…”  
“Before I could finish the ship made a violent jerk and I managed to barely pull myself through the blue portal. I hung out the side, one half of my body on the first ship and the other half on the second. Pwnk dove for the portal, and barely held onto my paw. 

The ship’s jerk caused it to flip on a 90-degree angle, and now Pwnk was just hanging onto my paw. If he let go, he would fall into the lava below.

“Pwnk!” I shouted. I tried to pull him up, but the shaking and jerking of the ship made pulling him up impossible. “I can’t pull you up. You’ve got to pull yourself up!” I shouted down to him. But I knew that it wasn’t easy for him either.

“I tried to balance the ship,” he shouted at me. “I did. But my strength wouldn’t hold!”  
“Try to pull yourself up,” I told him. “Come on! There’s not much time!” The ship was falling now, very fast. If he didn’t come through the portal in the next fifteen seconds then the ship would fall into the lava and we’d have no hope.

“I can’t,” he told me plainly. I very well knew why. Someone else joined me, trying to pull him up. But now the ship was flipped all the way down, and it seemed that saving him now was beyond our control. 

“I only hope that my actions saved many others,” he told me calmly with a smile.  
I couldn’t believe this. But then I realized that he knew that he wasn’t going to make it. I shouted down. “You,” I said. “You’ve… you’ve saved us. You’ve saved us all. And for that, I couldn’t be more grateful.” And we both knew what we had to do. Pwnk nodded, and then let go of my paw.

I tried to. I really did. But I just couldn’t. And I watched him fall down with his ship, down towards the sea of lava below. I couldn’t watch it anymore. I pulled up, and silently closed both portals. 

10 seconds ago I was 20 meters away from lava, on a sinking, falling ship, and watching the loss of one of my closest friends. Now, I was hundreds of meters high into the air, sailing through the air smoothly with everybody looking at me. It was awkward. I shook my head, and walked away. Nobody followed me as I sat with my back to the front of the ship. I didn’t say anything for the next couple of hours. 

I lay there, thinking to myself what the hell happened in the past half hour or so, and soon drifted off to sleep. 

**2**

“I couldn't save Pwnk,” I told Homegood.   
“You tried your best,” he reassured me. “He saved all of us. His actions will not be forgotten.”

We could see the outline of a large landmass in the distance. We were flying silently in the now crowded airship, all of us looking out towards the west where we could see our destination approaching toward us. The Badlands. 

An hour ago, I heard Cocoaone shout, “I see land!” Everybody had immediately looked towards the west, but we could not see anything. We thought it was a false alarm when I could just make out a small hazy outline of an island in the far distance. Soon, everybody could see the black landmass poking out of the horizon. We celebrated some, but then quieted down and just waited for us to arrive in the Badlands. We had traversed the Open, one of the largest seas in the Boundary. If Pwnk’s death made me extremely sad, this at least lifted my spirits.

Now we were almost there, and I could see the Badlands’ geography now. It was definitely populated, and you could sense that the island was teeming with Runners… and Regulars. The whole island looked like a dangerous wasteland. There was a mountain in the center of the island, where the Regulars probably had their headquarters. Nobody could see us from this height and distance, barely a speck in the air.

“Tell Cocoa to bring the ship down. We’re going to land.”

We dropped down, slowly but surely. We were now hovering over the island’s coast, just over the cliff. I felt us drop down with that small, funny feeling in your stomach when you drop down from somewhere at a great height. 100 meters… 75 meters… 50 meters… 10 meters… and finally we touched down with an expertly placed landing by our pilot Cocoa. He had spent his whole life experimenting with runes and balloons and devised many useful contraptions for flight and transportation with balloons. We were lucky to have him on our side.

We had about 40 mice with us, ten or so that didn’t make it during the incident with the airships. Among them were Pompom, Chess, Keith, Homegood, Tommato, and others. Finnys and Sonsikkim were with us, along with Pliked, Suyash, and Cocoaone. There was Sabusha and Vladsgirl taking care of the injured mice.

The first impression I had when I walked into the Badlands was that this place was dangerous. Lava was visible even where we stood, and there were traps and forgotten areas all over the island. They didn’t have specific areas; it was more like one vast place with endless traps and possibilities. The place was like a rainforest on the outside, and a vast, rocky space as you get closer and closer to the mountain.

“So. We’re at the Badlands,” Pliked said. No shit, I thought.  
“What should we do now? Stay here for the night?” I said while inspecting the area around us.   
“It’s getting dark. We had a long day today; let’s just camp here and then start exploring in the morning.” Pompomball put down her gear. It sounded like a good plan. We set up camp, and put defenses around us before we settled in for the night in this new place. You never knew who was out there, lurking in the nighttime. Especially in a dangerous and mysterious place like the Badlands. 

What was the situation like here? Were we winning or losing? How would we find the rebels? What would happen if we encountered some hostile Regulars? Should we make our way towards the mountains, or stay away from it and explore the coast? My life was filled with questioning and doubt. My arms felt like lead, and I carried a large burden. I let myself close my eyes and drift off into a nightmare.

In my head Pwnk’s death replayed over and over in my head. I tried to block it out but I found that I couldn’t. Suddenly my vision blacked out and I was now looking at Pwnk’s face, scorched and bloody by the lava. I tried hard not to scream.

“Simpleasthat. The coward who could not save me,” Pwnk said with a sadistic tone.   
“No,” I heard myself say. “I tried to save you!”  
“And it wasn’t enough!” Pwnk replied angrily.  
“I’m sorry,” I told him quietly. “Please…”  
Pwnk transformed into a huge, menacing beast before my eyes. He grabbed me with one of his powerful hands and lifted me up until I was at eye level with him.   
“You were weak,” he told me simply. “And now you will pay.” His other hand started to form a ball of fire.  
“No!” I shouted. “Please don’t do this!”  
“Oh, but why not?” the beast said. “After all, you deserve it.” And then the fire filled my vision, and everything went black. 

**3**

I awoke with a start, sweating and panting. It was still nighttime, and I could barely see around me. Next to me, Chesseo and Homegood were still asleep. Chesseo stirred for a moment, and then started to snore. 

I was afraid of sleeping again, in fear of having another nightmare about Pwnk or others that had lost their lives. I just lay there for a while, eyes open, just listening to the night and hearing the crickets chirp. Nobody said a word; I was the only one awake.

Slowly I got up. I took out the remaining runes I had left, and turned them on. I was going to go for a walk in the Badlands and see more of this place. I knew that this place was dangerous, but I was curious as well. Maybe I could map out a couple hundred meters out so that we knew where we were going when daylight came. 

I walked carefully as so to not accidentally bump into the mice that were still asleep, and made my way out of the clearing. I walked into the dark and gloomy forest that was facing me. I could only cross my fingers and hope that I wouldn’t accidentally die.

All around me was darkness, illuminated only by my weak Rune light. Heavy leaves and plants were around me. I used my Magik to cut away the tangled branches in front of me. I only had to do that rarely, though; there was a general path that was traveled on my other mice. I guess that they explored the island, too. 

I almost stepped on a lava trap, but I caught a glimpse of the red, distinguishable lava just in time. I took out my notebook and drew the general area of where the trap was so that when daylight came, we would take note of it as we walked by. I continued on, stopping every moment or so to map out the area around me. I thought I was doing a pretty good job. 

Soon, the general path ended. I couldn’t see where the path continued. Weird. I had no choice but to go on without the small guide path. I made a mental note to take more frequent stops to map out where I was. 

Suddenly, I heard a sharp crunch to my right. I whirled around, but no one was there. I got out my cannon just in case, but then I discovered that the crunch had just come from a weak branch falling down. I gave a quiet sigh of relief and walked on.

I think I traveled about 5 miles out now. My map was fairly detailed, illustrating the general path that I took and the traps along the way. I counted twelve, but there could be many more that could be hidden. I considered myself lucky that I didn’t fall for one of them. It was still dark, but I was getting tired of supplying a constant stream of Magik and decided that I should head back now. It would be easier to travel in daylight. 

I relied heavily on my crude, self-drawn map to head back to the base. My Rune supply was fading; I gave myself about two hours to get back to our base. Otherwise, I’d have to stay put until Rise came. 

15 minutes of walking. 30 minutes. I felt the Magik drain from me. I was getting more fatigued as I went on. The self-made light was getting more faint… 

An hour passed before I realized that I hadn’t reached the path yet. That was unusual; I had traveled more quickly so that I could reach the path faster. Yet after an hour, I hadn’t reached it yet. Had I made an error in my map? Was it useless now? I thought as I walked for 10 more minutes. I feared that I would never reach the path again.

After 5 more minutes, I stopped and looked around. This place looked familiar… but then again, everything looked familiar. Another half hour passed before I realized that something was up. Why didn’t I get cheese crumbs or something so that I wouldn’t have to do this? And then I looked to my left, and saw a square mark on a nearby tree. That was weird; I had seen that same strange mark an hour ago. I thought for a moment before I put two and two together and groaned. 

I was walking in circles, and I was hopelessly lost.

My map had been wrong. I must have made a mistake drawing somewhere, and then screwed up my entire route. And now I was lost in the middle of nowhere (literally), and having no clue at all where I was. I sighed and just stayed where I was for a while, as I turned off my now barely visible Rune light and just passed the time, knowing that the 2 hour mark had now passed. I didn’t have any more energy to fire up another Rune. 

I rummaged around in my pack for a while, seeing what I had. A couple cheese strips. That’d be no use to me but food now. Can’t set up a trail in the middle of nowhere. My notebook, writing utensils, and some other gear. I found some more food. I didn’t have a compass with me; that would help tremendously. We were on the east side of the Badlands.

I heard somewhere that moss grew on a side of a tree, and if you knew where it grew, you could use it as a compass to find your way around. The problem was, I had no idea what side the moss grew on. I could take a guess and have a 25 percent chance of getting it right, but then I realized that our sun was artificial. Created by the… Creators. Fury built up inside me. There were many things that went wrong in the past couple of hours, and this fact only added fuel to the fire. 

Maybe I shouldn’t have gone out and just stayed put at the base. Then I wouldn’t have to be here.

I had no energy to create Runes to go on, but I feared staying here where dangerous things presided. I was stuck, and I didn’t know where to go or what to do until daylight came. 

Assuming I had woken up at midnight or so, it would take about 4 to 5 more hours for the sun to come up. My mouse legs were aching and tired from walking all of this rough terrain. Finally, I just lay there with my eyes open, too afraid to sleep.

Baby, I thought to myself. I sighed and rolled over to my other side. After a while, I just stood up again. I couldn’t just stay here. I checked my pack again.  
I had a little more energy, and I managed to fire up a weak Rune. It wouldn’t last 5 minutes, so I searched my pack quickly and efficiently. Nothing new.

But then something caught my eye. It was small, but I noticed it. I eyed it and picked it up. It was an assist! I smiled, although nobody was around, and took the assist out.

I think I’ve mentioned assists before. They’re like boosters to your Magik. You don’t even need to use Magik for a couple hours, maybe 2, before you have to rely on your own Magik again. The simplest way to describe them was that they were mini-batteries with a lot of power. 

I took the assist out and guided its power into a Rune. Nothing happened for a moment, and I was worried. But then, a burst of sparks ignited, and a bright Rune shone out in all directions. Satisfied, I took the Rune and moved on. I focused on traveling in one direction, and hoped that it was the right one. When daylight came, I would know what to do again. But for now, I would travel for two hours. I didn’t know what to do after that. 

Once again, I traveled the Badlands. My legs were still aching, but as time went on they simply became numb and I didn’t feel the pain as much. Maybe there was a good side to this. It was nice exercise after all; and good endurance training. 

About one and a half hours later, I sensed a change in the forest. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but it was weird. The assisted Rune was still going strong, and would go strong for about another half hour. 

Now the Rune was diminishing, and I felt my own Magik now start to surge into the Rune. I definitely couldn’t keep this up for long. The assist would help me, but soon it would run out. I sighed and walked on.

But then I realized what the change was as time went on. I could see the outlines of the objects around me a bit more clearly. The darkness was fading away. I knew that it must be Rise, but I wasn’t completely sure until I saw the first ray of sunlight poke out into the forest. Just in time, too; my Magik was almost gone. I assumed that I had woken up later that I had guessed, so Rise had come sooner than I thought. 

Now the light was prominent, and I knew that the mice back at the base would be worried. I could probably find my way around now, though. I knew a couple directional tricks with sunlight. My spirits lifted, at least a little. 

I got my heading and started to travel back to the base. By the time I got back, the sun would probably be high in the sky, and the rebels would probably be thinking about traveling out. But I had a feeling that they would wait for me. Maybe they wouldn’t. Still, I needed to get back to the coast. 

I was a half hour in when I heard not one crack of branches now, but a series of them. I assumed that it was branches, but looked around just in case. I saw nothing. Satisfied, I continued walking. But then, I heard a whistling to my right and all the wind got sucked out of me as I fell to the ground, hard. 

Dizzy, I looked up and saw three mice with black bandanas covering their faces. One of them kicked my head, and I closed my eyes. I was losing consciousness. 

I couldn’t believe what was happening. Who were these mice? How did they know where I was?

The last thing I heard before drifting off into another nightmare was, “Take him to Renith.”


	14. Hidden Secrets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marching slowly into endgame territory.

**1**

Trapped in a void of nothingness.  
A chill sweeps over me.   
An enormous eye pokes out from the darkness. It is blue.  
An oversized, distorted nose appears. Then a mouth. I cannot control my movements; I have no choice but to float to the enormous mouth. Will it swallow me?  
But no, the mouth moves, and blows me away. I am drifting off in the other direction, quickly now.

Soon I slow down. All the Magik objects swirl around me in the dark background as I watch my friends die. Slowly. One by one. After I watch all of them, it replays itself. I scream for it to stop, to no one in particular.

But then it shuts off. It is pitch black. There is only a lighted Rune that shines out towards nothingness; the darkness swallows up the light.

A mouse comes down from above me. He looks similar to me. Same body features, same look, similar facial features. But his face is more square than mine, and he is bigger by a head.

“Who are you?” I ask.  
The mouse stays silent.  
“Who are you?” I repeat. “Where is this?”  
After a moment he speaks. “You are the Shaman of Gold.” And then he disappears. I am confused. There is no such thing as a gold shaman; they are only blue.

Before I wake up from my semi-nightmare, semi-vision, I hear an echo that repeats itself. “Renith. Renith. Renith. Renith… Renith.. Ren…”

The first thing I thought about after I woke up was, What is Renith? I had no idea why I asked myself that question, which was weird. But then I realized that one of the bandit mice told the others to take me to Renith. Was that a mouse’s name, or was that a place that I didn’t know about? I looked around me and saw that I was in a makeshift hut made out of boards. I was inside a wooden cage. I tried to use my Magik to get out, but I soon noticed that the cage was Magik locked. Everything I tried rebounded off the cage. It was fortified, too, so I couldn’t use brute strength either. I started worrying about my fate and what these bandits would do to me. 

And what was with that 'Gold Shaman' in my dream? Was it a special shaman because it was gold and not blue? But that is not the greatest of my worries, so I disregard the thought for now. 

There was nothing in the cage except for a couple cheese strips that weren’t much use to me. I could do nothing except wait for someone to come. Will I be a prisoner here forever? What will I do? No doubt, the rebels have grown tired of waiting. They’re probably out deep in the forest by now. 

Soon, I hear the sound of footsteps. I sit in my cell and wait. Then a mouse walks in.

I can get a clear view of the bandit who captured me now. He wears a black bandana across his face. He is of medium size, with a strong build. The only thing that shows on his face is his eyes, looking at me with a slight coldness. I thought I could see a trace of pity in his eyes, but I could not tell for sure. 

“Who are you?” I ask, furiously. “Where am I? And why did you take me here? You had no right.”

The mouse is silent. 

“Are you deaf? Answer me!” I ask again, angrier. I’m losing my patience with all the bad things that have happened over the last couple of days. 

The bandit sighs. He lifts his arms up, and I think that he is trying to summon a weapon. I grow tense, waiting to dodge, but he just lifts his arms up on the back of his head. He unties the bandana, and it falls to the floor.

I am shocked into place.

The ‘bandit’ is not a male. It is a girl mouse, and she looks at me with a small smirk on her face.

\- - - 

I couldn’t believe it. All this time I thought that the bandit that I now faced was male; but I had guessed wrong. She was medium-sized, with dark blue eyes and a face that looked similar to Pompomball. The obvious difference was that she had a red bow on her head. She carried a Zangetsu sword and various wooden necklaces on her wrist and neck that looked like charms. 

“You’re… you’re a…” I managed to croak.  
“Does it surprise you?” the mysterious girl asked slyly. “When I put the bandana on, it’s hardly noticeable.” She had a confident and clear voice, and she said this with a… a cute tone. She had me there, I had to admit. But that didn’t stop me from being tense.

“Wait, so answer me,” I said. “Who exactly are you, and where am I?”  
She gave a small smile. “Simpleasthat.”  
She knew my name. Interesting.   
“What?... wait, you know my na…”  
“Yes. If you think this is Regular territory, I don’t blame you. Don’t worry, we’re on your side.”

I gave a sigh of relief and relaxed, but I was still curious.

“Why did you take me? I could have gone back to my base.”  
“We got word from some of our most experienced spies that your base is on the eastern side of the island,” the girl replied. “Or to be more precise, just a mile or two off from the True Badlands.”

These spies knew where our base was! They must be extremely familiar with this land. Were they really on our side? But then she knew my name…

“What are the True Badlands? And you didn’t answer my question. Why did you decide to take me?”  
“One at a time. The True Badlands are probably the thickest and most dangerous area of forest in the entire island. You weren’t far off from there. First off, you were going in the wrong direction although you thought you had a good heading. We were returning from discovering your base when we heard you. We weren’t sure if you were friend or foe, so we took you and put you in this cell. But then we realized… that it was you. Simpleasthat.”

I was surprised and shocked. But I didn’t let it show. 

“Anything else you know? Did my group move out?”  
“That, I do not know. But for now, I think it’s time you trust us. I trust you, Simpleasthat; I am letting you out of the cell. My name is Tree,” she said, taking out a key that looked like it was infused with magic. The slid the key into the hole, and the Magik lock shimmered away. I pushed on the cell door; it swung loosely free. 

“Thank… thank you,” I said, looking at the mysterious mouse called Tree.  
“No problem,” Tree replied. “After all, you are our Leader,” she adds with a wink. 

This girl was confident, I thought. She walked and talked with a sense of calmness and ease. But I still wasn’t sure about this place. I followed Tree into a clearing outside my holding cell or whatever, and saw that this was an entire, self-sufficient base located who knows where. I saw that it was effectively hidden among the forest, so it was hard to find. 

“This is a very nice base,” I commented.  
“We try,” Tree replied. “We’ve been building this stronghold ever since tensions started to rise in your homeland. The idea of rebellion spread like a plague, even though the dimensions are separate.” Tree walked me through the base like a tour. There were huts everywhere, and I could see many specialty stations; a hospital of sorts, a forgery, and I think the one back there in the distance was a clothesmaker. In the center of the base was a large well with an abundance of water inside. Two mice were now getting water from a bucket as we passed by. They looked at me with surprise, but then went back to getting water.

Around the perimeter of the fort was some kind of blue haze. Smart, I thought. It was obviously some kind of Magik charm to ward off unwanted mice, but I didn’t know the right charm exactly. It looked like a quadruple rune, triple C anchor charm. That usually protected large areas most efficiently. But I wasn’t sure. 

We now came to the edge of the base, and Tree led me to another small hut. I followed her inside.

Two mice were inside. They looked like they were discussing something, maybe plans on their next move and deciding what they should do for the war. Tree called, “Hello?”

 

A male mouse turned his head. I realized that it was the mouse from my dream earlier; the same facial features, the same build. Sure enough, when he stood up, he was taller than me by a head. The mouse who told me about a Shaman of Gold. 

“Tree. Good seeing you,” the mouse said. “Kiytt, come here. It looks like Tree brought a visitor.”  
The other mouse, a female, got up and greeted Tree and me. 

“Hello, Tree,” the mouse said warmly. “And I think I know who you are, Simpleasthat.” She looked at me with a small smile. 

“Simple, I want you to meet Mipp and Kiytt. Yes, I know, Badland names can be hard to pronounce. But you’ll get used to it,” Tree told me. “Together, including me, we three are the founders of this stronghold, the headquarters of the rebel force.”

Okay, now I completely put my trust in this group.

“Hello,” I managed to speak. When nobody answered, I said, “I think you heard of our base to the east…”  
“Yes. In fact, I was the one who led that expedition,” Mipp said. “It was still a couple hours until Rise, and everybody was asleep. That was a dangerous move, Simple. Anyone who was familiar with this island could have just ambushed you in the middle of the night.”

Embarrassed, I could only manage a “Sorry.”  
Mipp sighed. “Unfortunately we have no idea where your base might be. They most likely have moved out by now, if they’re not idiots. No offense,” he quickly added with a tight smile. “We’ll have to put in another party to search the area. We’ll bring them over here after we find them.”

“Have you taken a look around the base?” Kiytt asked me. “We’re sorry that we locked you into a cell, we just had to make sure. Anyone could be a fake nowadays.”  
“It’s alright,” I said. “Yes, Tree did a good job in giving me a sweep of the base. It’s really nice.”  
“Thanks. We tried to make it the best we could given the circumstances,” she said. 

“So… what are we to do now?” I asked the group of three.  
“Well, until you walked in we were discussing strategy and some battle tactics,” Tree answered. “Feel free to join; after all, you took over the Mainland.” I wanted to say that it was nothing, that we were lucky, and that I shouldn’t take the credit for that victory. But I kept quiet. “Alright,” I say, and try to be of help over the next few hours. 

After a few hours, a heated debate on where we should stack our forces, and many maps and sketches, we were done. “That,” I said simply, “was tiring.”  
“Yes, I agree. That was a bit long even for our standards,” Tree said to me. “Maybe because you were here,” she added with a wink. I cannot help but force a small smile. 

“So we’re forming a party to get my group?” I asked Tree.  
“Yes,” she said. “We’re going to set out in a couple of minutes. We’re just making final preps.”

I feel comfortable for the first time, and can’t help looking at Tree. She looks at me at the same time, and we blush slightly and look away. We are shy; that’s one thing we have in common.

Before we leave, I have one more question. “What’s this base called?”  
“Renith,” she says. As simple as that. 

**2**

“We thought you were dead or something when we didn’t see you for the next couple of hours,” Lilmouse told me while eating some Badland-grown cheese. “We doubted that and waited, but then we were just losing precious time. So we started to travel.”

“Yeah, well, I guess you did the right thing,” I said with indifference. “I got lost. I wanted to map out the area ahead of us early so that we could travel faster. But somewhere along the way I think I made a mistake in my map and I got lost.”

Kiytt said, “For now, let’s just stick together. We know our way around better than you. Too many of you keep getting lost.”

I was reunited with my group again. After searching for two hours, Mipp and his crew found Delta in the woods, not far off from where I had been attacked by ‘bandits’. It turned out that they didn’t know where they were going, either. So now, we’ll just have to put our trust in this group and follow them. I felt lucky that we had found Renith; without it, I didn’t know where we would be.

There was a lot of talking and greeting after we found Delta. They saw the mysterious party of mice with me, and were tense; but I had reassured them that they were on our side, that they were from Renith, and that they were the main rebels of the Badlands. They still weren’t sure, but soon accepted Renith’s kind hospitality and soon started to form plans for this island. 

“So what’s the situation on the Badlands?” I asked Tree. It was the first question of its kind that I’d asked. I’d talked about battle strategies and general skills, but not a geographical sense of the war. I was too tense too ask anything like this before, but I was comfortable now. More comfortable when I asked Tree.

“Well, we’ve taken over some good areas but most of the important places behind the volcano are all Regular territory. We guessed that they improved their defense and weapons by up to 200 percent after the win on the Mainland. I guess you could say that it’s tied if you’re optimistic, but honestly it’s not going so well. We’re barely covering our own territory.” I realized that there simply weren’t enough trained mice on the Badlands to really get a grip on this island. We could still try, though.

“What’s the rebel to Regular ratio?”  
“About 1.5 to 1. Who knows, with all the added security it might be 1:1.”  
“Are reinforcements?”  
“Simple, the Badlands are probably 95% of our population.”

So we were stuck. Right now, we were in a situation where we couldn’t do anything. We couldn’t try to even challenge Regular territory in fear of losing our own. I told this to the small group in the Rebel Hut, which was the name of the hut that I had met Mipp and Kiytt.

“Well, right now, I only see one way to go,” Mipp told the group. “You may not like it, but it’s probably the only chance we got.”  
“And what’s that?” I told him.  
“Attacking the Volcano.”

We paused. There was a moment of silence all around the table. Lilmouse stopped nibbling on his cheese and eyed Mipp curiously. “Really?”  
“Well, if you think about it, that’s probably the only choice we have left.” And it was true, what Mipp said. It was a crazy idea but it seemed like that was the way to go right now. Every other territory had either been secured by us or the Regulars. If we could somehow kick out the Regulars on the summit of that volcano, then we could have control of the Badlands. And then we could win this war. 

“It’s a farfetched plan,” I commented. However, I had some of my doubts about this. It didn’t seem like a good idea at the moment. Something told me that we should wait.  
“Why so?”  
“Well, we need to call a lot of rebels in if we even want to think about…”  
“Stop. We know our way around this island. We know the locations of every other rebel base on our half of the island. Don’t worry.”  
“There’ll be a lot of Regulars and obstacles.”  
“We can fight them off. War is war.”  
“We could all fail this mission and die, too.”  
“For the cause, I’d be more than happy to,” Tree finished for Mipp. 

I realized that Mipp and Tree were firm believers of freedom. Maybe even more so than me. I admired their courage and nodded. “Alright. But how exactly are we going to do this?”

“Well, first we should have a vote,” Kiytt chimed. “If you think that there should be an invasion of the volcano, raise your paw.”  
I counted the wave of hands. Eleven.   
“And not in favor?”  
Another group of hands. Eight. So that settled it.

“I count eleven in favor, and eight not in favor,” I told Kiytt with a whisper.  
“Yes, I counted that too,” she replied. “So I guess that means that we’ll analyze the situation and start preparing for the Volcano.”

We weren’t going to just pick up our gear and start going. It wasn’t as simple as that. There was much planning involved; how we were going to gather our rebels, what route or routes we were going to take, and what formations we were going to use to go up the volcano. 

The next day, we talked about our troop count. We agreed to bring in a bunch of rebels on the deep half of the island, where bases weren’t as important. For hours we sent out parties to gather our troops at Renith. By the third day we generally agreed upon it that we had enough mice. 

This entire stronghold was, as I think I mentioned before, built like a town. We could live pretty comfortably as we readied ourselves for the siege. The decision seemed so sudden, I thought. But as days passed I realized that this was the right choice. For months, the Badlands was a hotly contested area. It had reached its climax; there was nothing else left to do but to get one desperate attempt to attack the volcano. I soon knew that the rebels of the Badlands were losing this war; they were losing ground. This siege was the only way. And with that thought in mind, I trained harder than ever before, pushing myself and Delta to the extremes. We held contests to see who could conjure the most anvils in ten seconds. Polygone barely won with 16 anvils, with Pliked and me coming in a close second with 15. This week relaxed our tension a bit, but we were still training hard. 

After a week, we had agreed on the route path. It would go around a couple dangerous areas and go through a couple Regular spots, but once we got to them we’d move around them. Our volcano strategy was to climb fast, stay alert for things on top, and to go up spaced apart. If you saw something attacking you from above, you should try to move out of the way. Once you got up to the top, you had to waste no time and hurry along to the Regular bases as quickly as we could. Otherwise, the Regulars would notice us.

Finally, after 10 days we were ready to head out to the volcano. We left a couple mice behind to look after Renith, but then packed our gear and made a quiet exit, out into the open Badland environment outside the base. 

Now open to the light, I could finally see the Badlands clearly and for the first time. Most of it was irregularly shaped, with various types of wood jutting out and forest covering the areas like it was abandoned for a long time. The artificial sun poked through the trees and gave light to the green vines and leaves above us, illuminating the canopy and the area with a dark green glow. It was a beautiful sight; and dangerous. Sometimes you could see the lava that would fling you to who knows where if you ever touched it. Our route plan made sure to steer clear from the most dangerous ones.

Our footsteps made small sounds on the wood and leaves below as we moved along. Once in a while we stopped to eat and drink. After resting for a short while, we were on the move again. We always stayed alert for traps, lava, and other bases. But Renith’s mice had exceptional knowledge of the island; rarely did we ever come across a tricky section of lava or other traps. Again, I didn’t know where we would be if not for Renith and the rebels. 

After a day or so Tree told us, “We’re closing in on the rebel-Regular boundary. It’s basically where most of the fighting takes place- it marks where our territory is and where the Regular territory is.”

“Wait, then why aren’t we seeing any fighting?” I asked dumbly.  
“We’ve taken a special route outside the edge of the current main fighting areas. If you hear spirits and cannons, don’t be alarmed. We’re only avoiding the main places. If you want to join in… feel free,” Tree replied with a shrug. 

We did our best not to. We had a massive volcano to take over. 

I accidentally bumped into Tree again around a half hour into that announcement. I looked into her face and quickly apologized. “Sorry.”  
“It’s alright,” she said with a small laugh.

I suddenly looked into her eyes, and she looked into mine. I had a flashback from long ago, when I had bumped into Sabusha. The feeling of longing. But this time, the feeling was stronger. Had I developed feelings for this girl? I turned around to look at Sabusha, trailing and looking into the forest habitat. I looked at Tree, with her red bow and her face warm and understanding. I tried to detect what she felt about me, but I couldn’t perceive anything. The moment lasted for barely 10 seconds.

I quickly said, “Well, I guess I should watch where I’m going a bit more carefully,” with a laugh, and then trailed behind. Tree only rolled her eyes with a slight smile and walked on. 

After we crossed the Boundary and camped for the night, I realized something while looking up into the growing darkness of the forest.

I did have feelings for her. She was… beautiful. I didn’t know what I should do, but I did know one thing; it was the beginning of love. 

But did she feel the same?

\--- 

We had just entered a clearing. It wasn’t supposed to be there, according to Gregory. He was one of the most experienced travelers of the land; in fact, he had gathered up most of the rebels to Renith. So it was a surprise to hear it from him. We still traveled on, and entered the clearing. 

What we saw was… interesting.

It looked like a base, until we realized that it belonged to the Regulars. Items with Council logos were clearly visible; the picture with the cheese in the sky and the Magik essence in the ground. Everything was dark around here, and we had to fire up some large Runes to keep the original light. 

Old huts and supplies were scattered around. It was an abandoned base, I realized. I wondered how old it was if Gregory hadn’t noticed it- he regularly performs island sweeps. 

“It wasn’t here before,” he remarked. “Interesting. I don’t think it should pose any problem, though.”  
“Let’s hope so,” Pompom said with just a hint of nervousness.  
“I think we could gather up some of these supplies and weapons and use them,” I said. “They’re not all broken.”

We spent the next hour gathering anything useful we could find, including Magik assists and food supplies. It felt weird to rob someone else’s base, but they were the Regulars after all. I wondered why they left this place in such a hurry.

I bent down to pick up a strange object that looked like a small crossbow when I heard something roar to my right. I looked up sharply and saw someone yelp.

“What is it?” I shouted before I quickly saw the jet of fire coming at me. 

**3**

I ducked, but just barely. I could literally feel the heat of the blast shoot right above my surprised face. I fell backwards and fell on the ground, too alarmed to shout or cry. And then as quickly as it came, it turned off and the jet of fire disappeared. 

I just lay there for a while, panting, when I finally got the strength to speak again. “What… was that?” 

Pompomball looked at me. She looked surprised as well. “You alright?”  
“Yeah. But… where did that come from?” Nobody else other than us was here.   
“Hey guys, come over here,” Gregory said. “I think I found out what caused the flame.” We all gathered around a black object on a ledge of a hut. It had an opening in the front, and it was shaped like a pot. I walked to it, not caring that it might fire up again. With my Zangetsu I broke the pot and lifted the thing inside.

“It’s the cannon charm that caused the fire,” I said to the group. You could use cannons for many charms; which included small fires. But I didn’t know how a cannon could generate a flame that large. “Whatever it was, it was probably a trap for anyone who tried to sabotage their base.”  
“It looks like it happened,” Cocoa said simply. The base sure looked sabotaged. The Regulars must have abandoned it out of panic. I wondered who attacked them. 

Lilmouse took a closer look at the charm. “I think the cannon’s infused with a rune,” he remarked. He inspected it more and said, “Yeah, it’s got some B-anchored runes in there. It gives the charm a stronger flare. They’re pretty rare to come by, though.”

“So that explains it,” Pie concluded.  
“Well, now since that scare’s over, what do we do now?” Chesseo asked.  
“Let’s keep salvaging this area,” I replied. “And try not to activate any other freakish pots of fire, ok?”

And for a while, we took all of the valuable things we could. We would need everything we had to face the Regulars at the Volcano. We didn’t run into any more fires, but there was a lot of lava around. We had to be careful. Luckily, nobody was injured from any lava so far.

I went into a room in one of the smaller huts and came across a small ring of logs. It looked like someone started a fire in here. I put my paw over the logs to see if they had any heat, because that would mean that the Regulars must have left here recently. But the wood was stone cold. 

But in the wood there was a singed bundle of papers. It looked as if someone wanted to destroy the papers and burn them. But somehow the fire went out before it could make any serious damages to the papers. This whole place seemed like a huge mystery, and we were the detectives. 

I looked at the papers. I picked them up, curious, but didn’t read them yet. At a quick glance they seemed like journal entries. I salvaged any other things that looked useful in the hut, and then went back outside. The search was beginning to end. 

Soon, we were all around the center of the abandoned base, in a group. We had salvaged some assists, some herbs for the medics, and tons and tons of food and supplies. This salvage was a useful one; we had found lots of stuff here to last us for a long time, probably a month or two.

We went in turn, laying out all our stuff. The most prominent item that I saw was a blue gem that glimmered when you turned it this way and that. Another curious but not useful item was a drawing of the landscape. It was drawn with some Regular’s imagination; rolling hills, an ocean in the distance, and a setting sun in the corner. It was the symbol of peace and tranquility. 

That was what my life seemed to be before I was sucked into this mess.

My turn came. I carefully took out everything I had, the most useful being a large sack of Badland cheese and a flame assist; the same scare we experienced earlier but with much less flare and power. If anything, it was some of our energy saved. Assists were great because you didn’t have to channel Magik through yourself; you could just take it out from the small assist.

The last thing I laid down was the packet of papers. Some mice eyed it curiously, but didn’t say anything. We would talk when we were finished laying out all our stuff.

Tree, Kiytt, and Mipp were the last to lay out their stuff, and I was impressed. They together had more valuable things than all of us combined. Their stash could last them alone a couple weeks. I felt a tinge of jealousy as they fished out food, assists, herbs, and countless flares. I still didn’t say anything, though. We hadn’t since we started laying the items out.

Finally, we were done. We looked at each other and nodded as we looked at our impressive pile that was in the middle of our circle group. We decided that we’d take this base as a safety while we headed for the volcano. So we’d stay here for now.

Now we fervently chattered about what we got, or what was useful and what wasn’t. Finnys came up to me and said, “Hey, I saw those papers you got out there.”  
“Yeah, I should go take a look.” I started to walk away, but stopped and added, “Thanks,” as I went to the stash.

We had the stack piled inside a small hut now, guarded by a couple rebels. They let me in, and I went to go fish the papers that Finnys mentioned. It took a while, but I got them out. I took them and went back to Finnys.

“You got them?” she asked me.  
“Yeah, should I read them to you?”  
“I don’t care, go ahead.”

So amid the drone of rebels talking, I started to read. They were journal entries!

"Day 1, Aerogram  
That’s what we somehow decided to name this place, Aerogram. It is hopefully going to be a permanent base unless something very bad happens to us. We’re not that far from one of the rebels’ bases; we’re considering attacking but intelligence tells us that this could be the strongest one. I think we should just stay put for now and let them come our way. For now, I’m writing this because I have nothing better to do. When I look back on this, I’ll have something to remember by."

I stopped, because the first page ended there. I looked at Finnys, who nodded and gestured to go on. 

"Day 4, Aerogram  
Some of our best intel told us that there’s a new wave of mice in the Badlands. That’s impossible; basically all of the Kongregate population is here, not anywhere else. Nobody would be coming in. Unless they somehow managed to hop the Open and jumped dimensions between the war, there’s no chance. And besides, nobody’s seriously crossed the Open before. I’m beginning to trust my intel less and less. 

"My name is Blue. I’m co-leader of Aerogram here. The leader, Bells, decided that Aerogram was a good name which I still don’t think it is. Oh well.

"Basically there’s been nothing special, just making our rounds. I’ve changed my mind; I want to attack what intel calls Renith. With all this boring stuff around, there’s nothing really to talk or write about. But this place is a democracy."

That was the end of the second page. I sensed that something was weird, and then realized that everybody had gone silent. I looked around and saw everybody looking at me, listening. It was awkward. But I continued on.

"Day 5, Aerogram  
One of our most skilled crafters just managed to forge a huge flare with just 5 B-runes. I think that’s very good. We also put some kind of spirit sensor with it into a black mechanism so that it activates if it encounters unrecognized mice; like the idiot rebels. 

"I almost feel bored having to fight this war with these imbeciles. We made a mistake over at the Mainland. If I was there, I wouldn’t let that happen. But hey, we had a war to fight over here too. With me and a few other Honors I know, we’d easily take over this place. They’re trapped. They’ll face a surprise over at the volcano, too. As long as something bad didn’t happen over there, we’ll fend them off for sure. The Badlands will be ours. 

"I’ll say this right now, but if the rebels ever find this I’ll rip it up and burn it if I have to. The rebels don’t need to read my shit over here. But really, in my opinion, we’re fighting this war over the orb. They call it; well, I’m not even sure if they know it exists. The Creators can’t use it, but they don’t have to. They have their own supernatural powers or something. But we guard the orb. In case they find out. It’s actually so heavily guarded, I’m not sure if our buddy Holz can break through it. 

"Creators can’t use it because it needs Gold Magik, but they don’t need Gold Magik. They have something even better. Their Magik actually looks kind of red when I see it in action. Well, of course, they used it to kill someone so I don’t know if it’s because of that or if that’s their normal Magik…

"The orb is like the rebels’ lifesaver. I’m burning these once I sense danger, so I don’t give a damn. Well, not really. They can’t use regular Magik to open it up, they need Gold Magik. That including our impeccable defense? Consider this war done. Won by us, of course.

"But if they ever find that orb… and if they ever manage to break our defense and use it… they could very well bend this world to their will and get whatever they’re feebly hoping for. That’s just too risky, so we’re guarding it more heavily than anything else. They don’t even know where it is or if it exists, so I don’t really care much. Just going through the days, hoping for something exciting to happen.

"Man, it’s scary shit we’re talking about here.

"Day 12, Aerogram  
I can’t stay for long. It seems like one of the outside rebel groups have gotten to us. Intel says that their ETA is about 5 minutes. Before I go, I want to scribble this down just to let go of all my anxiety. I hope I’ll make it through, but it’s improbable. We’re outnumbered 3 to 1. But we’re a strong group of mice and not those idiots. I hope we’ll make out well.

"I’m burning this now, and this is sort of useless because I’m writing on something I’ll destroy, but I just can’t afford to let the rebels see this crap. 

God help us win this war."

Everybody was silent as a stone. I realized the gravity and the huge effect of these lone papers. I stopped and looked up, because those were the last of the journal entries. The rest, I assumed, were either gone or destroyed by the burned fire. It looked as if some papers survived just in time, and during the battle in this base something happened and the fire went out. It was weird, because if a rebel base attacked anywhere we’d probably know. But this was secret. 

Nobody could say anything now. We were in the possession of some pieces of paper that, if true, could give us the only way to our freedom. I don’t know if I can really describe it, but there was like a lump in my throat that couldn’t get me to speak. 

An orb. An object that, when controlled, could bend our way to freedom? Could it destroy the Boundary and somehow give us our greatest wish? I was mute, but ideas raced in my mind.

But then, if these papers were somehow true, then we couldn’t use it anyway. There would be a tremendous loss of life, and we could all die. It was heavily guarded in some unknown place that we didn’t know, and there needed to me some kind of special Golden Magik to use it. But there was still hope in my heart, and my airways opened a bit. 

“What did I just read?” I asked, to no one in particular.   
Nobody said anything, still thinking or just shocked, until Cocoaone said, “I think… I think that you just read what could be the most important document in the entire war.”

“Well, I don’t know about…”  
Pompomball spoke. “I think we need to talk about this seriously. Come over here.”

**4**

We were all with Pom near a small hut in the abandoned base now. We weren’t that talkative; we might have exchanged a few whispers and generally stayed quiet. Nobody wanted to believe in this farfetched orb that I had just read on the parchment of papers in my pack. 

After a prolonged silence I finally said, “Do you believe in this?”  
“I think it could be probable,” Tree replied first. “The journal entry sounded serious enough. He did try to burn the papers but luck burned the wrong ones.”  
“But why would he even write them down at all?” Homegood said. “He had them in his head, why risk it? Better safe than sorry.”  
“Still, he sounded pretty confident in successfully destroying those papers. I don’t think he saw it as a problem,” Chesseo added.

I didn’t quite know myself if I believed in this orb or not. It seemingly needed to be opened with a special kind of Magik, it was protected more so than any other area in the war, and could possibly open the Boundary and lead us to freedom. It seemed serious enough, but I still wasn’t sure.

“Even if this so-called orb was real,” Sabusha said, “We don’t know where it is.”  
“We don’t have any special Magik or anything either,” added Keith. “Except maybe Simple… but he doesn’t have this.” He looked at me, and I shrugged.   
“I don’t even know what Gold Magik is, let alone how to conjure any of it up.”

“But there has to be a way to find this orb,” Mipp said, “On the off-chance that the siege doesn’t work out too well for us. Otherwise we’re sunk.” 

If we didn’t know about this object, this orb, then we’d still fight to the death for our freedom. But the chances would always be stacked against us. But if this orb was real, then we had a chance. A big chance. It changed the way I looked at the war entirely. I knew that if we tried our greatest, then we could win. But still, the Regulars were extremely powerful. But now if we controlled this orb then we could win the war right then and there.

But the downside was that we had no idea where it is, and we didn’t have anything called Gold Magik to control it. 

Pliked, Kiytt, Lilmouse, and everyone else seemed to join the conversation on what to do with our current situation and our sudden knowledge of this orb of power. Everything seemed to speed up faster and faster until the words became mumbled and my vision blurred… 

And then everything became black before my eyes. I was still conscious, but everything just blacked out. I could not see.

And then a flashback came to me, one of my previous dreams. I saw an enormous, disfigured face look at me. It blew me away and I traveled through an open sea of nothingness with images of my comrades dying, over and over. I shouted and begged for it to stop, to no one in particular. Not this again, I pleaded. Anything but this. Why was I having this terrible dream over and over again?

But then I stopped, and the images went away, and I only looked in front of me where a hazy light shone. And then a mouse appeared, like before, slowly in front of me, with similar features to me. And then I realized that it was Mipp, but taller, broader, and definitely much older. I was confused. Why was I here?

“Who are you?” I asked, like last time. I couldn’t help it.  
The mouse said nothing. He just looked at me with curiosity.  
“Who are you?” I asked again.

He still did not answer. I was about to ask something else when he held up his arm and put it on my shoulder. 

“You are the Shaman of Gold,” he said. And then, with sudden, unexpected tears to my eyes, the blackness faded and turned fuzzy as I came to, dazed and unbelieving.

===

The mice around me, now becoming clearly, looked at me with surprise and confusion.

“Are you alright?” Tree asks me, with a worried look on her face.   
I struggle for words, and then manage a “Yeah, I’m alright.”  
“You blanked out there for a second,” Tommato told me. “We were a bit worried; we didn’t know what was going on…”  
“What happened?” Cocoa asked.

The influx of questions hurt my head once more, and then waited for my head to clear. 

“I just had a memory of something that happened for me before. It’s… confusing, but I had a dream the day I got ambushed by bandits…” I looked towards Mipp, who just shrugged. “…and it was a bit confusing. But now I think I know what it means. I don’t know if it’s true or not, but it’s worth telling I think.”

“Then say so!” Kiytt and Finnys said at the same time.

“In my dream, I was in this place where everything was really black, but I came to this place where a strange mouse came up to me. He looked like Mipp, but older.” I waited for the group to pass comments that I was a bit crazy, but to my surprise nobody said anything. I went on.

“I asked him who he was, but he didn’t say anything. I asked again… and he just put a paw on my shoulder and he said, ‘You are the Shaman of Gold.’ That was it. After that, everything became lighter until I woke up. The memory just came to me again. I didn’t know what it meant, and I was confused until now…”

I waited for the group to ponder this. After a while, Pliked said, “I doubt that it’s true. It’s just a dream. More often than not, dreams don’t come true.”  
“But it’s weird that such a vision would come to you before we were all aware of this Gold Shaman,” Pompomball said. “I don’t know, I’m just saying it might be true.”  
The mice gathered around passed similar comments to the ones Pliked and Pompom said. 

“I don’t know if it’s true or not,” I told the mice, “I just know that it’s true that I had this dream.”

Everybody pondered over this crazy, last-minute dream. I wasn’t even sure if the group believed me or not. 

Then, Tommato said, “Even if every doubtful thing that we’ve encountered so far is true, we still don’t know where the hell this stronghold is. So I say that we stick to our original plan, don’t risk anything stupid, and take this Volcano!”  
I had to applaud his sense, and everybody else agreed as well. It was to the Volcano it was.

We didn’t waste much time now. We’ve been in this mysterious base long enough. We were finally finishing what we came here to do; hopefully take over what was essentially the Badlands’ Vanilla 40. The Volcano.

I didn’t know if the Regulars knew if we were coming or not, but I guess we had to be prepared for anything that came our way. We had items stashed from our supplies and the secret base that could help us in nearly all situations. I couldn’t emphasize enough how lucky we were to stumble along this secret place. Without it we’d have a lot less chance of winning this war.

I wondered how the mice over on the Mainland were faring out. Had they held off the Regulars over there well enough? What if the Regulars found new strength and managed to take over our Mainland? Then we’d have no hope…

Although we were making haste, we left sooner than I expected. Mipp and the leading group marched right out, and we had no choice to follow or get left behind. We were serious now; we had to ready ourselves for battle now and hope to control the Volcano in the hopes of winning this war. 

We weren’t far from our destination. We had expected to get to the Volcano by the end of the day, but we had to make room for the salvage in the Regular base, which delayed our plans by a little more than a day. The delay was definitely worth it, however.

We were silent, small feet slightly crunching on the Badland ground beneath us, as we continued our journey to the Volcano. One incident was scary; Gregory, the mapmaker, had encountered a rare lava trap that he did not know about. One unlucky mouse had walked straight into the trap, and we heard a deafening scream as we whirled around and just barely saw Turbovrgn fly sky-high and crash out of the Badland forest. 

We dreaded that we had lost him, but luckily he had enough sense to execute a well-timed airjump. He landed a few meters away from where we were, and we thought we heard a bone break. 

We rushed over, and the medics quickly identified his broken leg and set it as quickly as they could with special material that was most commonly found in conjured balloons. 

“You alright?” I asked Turbo.  
“I don’t think I look alright,” he said with just a little annoyance.   
“Sorry. Just worried.”  
“I think I’ll make it through. Lucky I don’t have to fight, eh?” he told me jokingly. However, I knew that he wasn’t the cowardly type; he wanted to fight. He has a deep, burning hatred for the Regulars. One of the oldest mice, ever since Kerovan came and left he had wanted to get back at the Regulars ever since. I only hoped that his leg would heal quickly.

We continued walking, and I caught Tree’s eye. I still had feelings for her, with her personality and the fact that she was… beautiful. But as I watched her, she showed no signs that the feeling was mutual. She walked on, only giving a small smile of acknowledgement. This would not be easy.

I was ashamed of thinking about love in the middle of a war where I could be killed very soon, but she always occupied a section of my thoughts. When I was by myself, I would often mind myself thinking about her. But she was making it difficult. I wasn’t sure if she loved me. I dropped the matter for now, shaking my head, and walked on. 

For hours we hiked north, deeper and deeper into Regular territory. Surprisingly, thanks to Gregory’s knowledge, we did not see any other Regular bases other than the one we made our salvage on; the base that we now called Discovery and not Aerogram. To me, everything seemed the same to me. It seemed like we were walking the same trees, grounds, and forest everywhere. But to my surprise, we stopped abruptly. Mipp held up a hand, signaling for us to stop and be quiet. 

With a barely audible whisper but just loud enough so we could hear, he said, “We are now near the Volcano site. There might be a lot of Regulars. Prepare your weapons, but only attack when attacked upon.” We were close now. We had to watch our backs. Making sure that we weren’t making any sound, we inched closer and closer to what Mipp told us what would be the Volcano. It still looked like forest to me, so I was confused.

But soon, I smelled something in the air that was different. It smelled like… smoke and ash, what you would get from the remains of a fire. I soon realized that the forest was disappearing up ahead. Surely it couldn’t be…

We did not exit the forest, but stayed close enough to the clearing that we could stay hidden and could see the looming structure that was high in the sky, that was previously blocked by the thick layers of forest trees…

It was a reddish-black mass of slanted rock, an optical illusion, an impossibility. I never thought that it would be this big. It was the Volcano in all its glory, climbing what looked to be miles high. On the top, there seemed to be a small plateau where the Regular bases must be. The Volcano’s crater would be there as well.

I gulped. We’d need to rely on luck more than usual after all. 

**5**

We hid, unseen to the other mice. We all watched and scouted the massive Volcano and its surroundings. I guessed that it was probably the tallest structure ever made on Transformice.

The Volcano was situated on a large, flat clearing of about 300 meters. Around it was all thick forest material. Around the Volcano was surprisingly low security, with Regulars casually chatting amongst themselves. Was this really the almighty Volcano, with 1:1 regular to rebel security? It sure didn’t look like it. 

Tree must have thought the same thing and whispered in my ear, “They’re probably all on top.”  
Her voice surprised me, and I looked towards her. I said, “Possibly…”

Other than that, there was only a steep, vast passageway of steps that you could climb all the way to the very top of the Volcano. Thin wisps of smoke protruded from the top of the Volcano, and every now and then you could hear a slight rumble in the earth; but never had it actually erupted before. The entire place had a nervous atmosphere, at least to us.

“So what are we going to do?” I told Mipp.  
“We attack,” he replied, and ran out into the open, just like that. I was very surprised, and I had no idea what to do, so I had no choice but to follow him, with cannons and shield charms intact.

The Regulars really weren’t seeing it coming at the bottom. They took a full 5 seconds before even noticing us running towards them, setting up attack and defense charms, and even longer to throw up any offensive moves that they may have had. This was going very nicely.

Still, they put up a difficult fight. They might have reacted slowly, but their weapons were more powerful than us, even with the salvaged materials. The ground battle lingered on and on for half an hour. Again, the familiar sound of whirling cannons and crates and the blast of spirits sounded all across the field as I held up my paws to my ears to stop the ringing. I narrowly avoided an anvil trap coming my way, and then almost got critically hit with a floating cannon. But somehow I survived with my own shield charms and sharp cannons. 

The ground battle was over in an hour. Definitely, the Regulars above must have at least faintly heard that something was wrong down there. I pointed at the Volcano, gestured for our ragtag team of 120 (thirty were wounded and were being taken care of below) to follow, and started climbing the mile-high face of rock.

My paws slipped as they struggled to climb this new, slippery surface that I had never seen before. It was probably native to the Badlands. Upon closer inspection, it sort of looked like… like sand. Red sand. But it had the same properties as any old vanilla surface. It was harder, though, to climb. 

“You doing all right?” I shouted below, and heard a scattering of affirmative answers. I looked down just in time to see the mouse below me slip and fall, taking down two more mice with him. I cringed, but then saw that the mouse just managed to grasp onto a handhold. One mouse was unlucky, and fell all the way down. I didn’t hear the thud, but I had no doubt that the mouse that was taken by the mouse below me had probably died. I shook my head and continued, climbing even more carefully than before.

It seemed as if the climb to the top of the Volcano seemed longer than the battle on the base. Sweat trickled down my fatigued face as I reached for my water supply hanging on my waist. My paws were getting sore, and my arms struggled to climb. Soon, I had to stop. Panting, I barely managed to hastily conjure an outcrop from the wall. I flopped down on the plank, thinking that death might be a better feeling than this. I looked down once more and saw that some other mice had done the same as me. Soon, I had to make more planks because the mice with more endurance had caught up to me.

“Good choice,” Chesseo panted as he climbed up to where I was.  
“Agreed,” said a tired Homegood.   
Chesseo, Homegood, Tommato, Pompomball, Mipp, and others were with me; about thirty. The rest were on various platforms built below us. 

“We’re the leading group,” I told them. “We move, they move. We stop, they stop.”  
“Cool,” said Lilmouse. “But I thought that we’d get attacked mid-climb or something, and I thought there’d me much more security at the base down below.”  
“I thought so too, but maybe they’re all up on the top, waiting to strike when the time is right.”

“It just seems fishy,” Tommato added.   
After taking a break, I realized that my arms were regaining strength. “Let’s go,” I said. And like Mipp did to us, I immediately went on an adrenaline burst of climbing speed. Helpless, the others followed.

After what seemed like forever, I was extremely tired once more, but I looked up and saw that there was only a couple hundred meters left. About 100 of us were ready to fight once we got up to the top. The only worry we had was, what did the Regulars plan up there?

100 meters were left now. My arms were crying to stop, but I ignored all pain and pushed on. 80 meters. 70 meters. 65 meters. 

Then, I saw a black line form at the top of the Volcano. What could that be? I stopped for a moment to watch. The line got thicker and thicker until it could be visible. I looked down and saw that the others were watching as well. The black mass was some sort of a container of something. Then I saw a small spark and I realized that this was not going to be good for us. 

The black mass began to tip, and I could only shout quickly to take cover as the flaming, black rock rolled down towards us.

I literally just conjured a weak shield just in time to deflect a flaming black object spinning at me. I could feel the shudder of the impact, and I could barely manage to hang on. I quickly made a temporary outcrop like I did before, but I knew that it wasn’t going to last. The battle for the Volcano started now.

They weren’t black rocks, I realized. They were in fact anvils that had somehow been charmed with flames. We didn’t know how to mix flames with anything, much less with anvils. I quickly made a ghost shield around me, and slowly started to climb again. The impact and the shudders of the anvils resonated all around me, and the whizzing of anvils could be heard all around. But as long as I kept my shield strong I could slowly build up. I looked down briefly and saw that the others were doing the same. But this was no easy task.

The Regulars seemed to have an infinite supply of these bombs. Everything I did became survival instinct and routine. Climb, build, climb, build, anchor, climb, build. I was scared that I would fall from the impact of the bombs that seemed to get stronger and stronger, but my anchors barely held on. 

Soon, I was nearly at the top. The bombs were still raining, but I could now see where they were placing them from this close and I could dodge them easily. I saw a group of mice just behind me. I nodded to them and then hoisted myself up and punched the Regular right in front of me in the face. He collapsed, unconscious. 

Immediately I brought up my shields and made a Stickied balloon. This was an advanced technique that I had learned while in the Badlands. As long as you conjured a balloon on yourself and anchored it, you would not fly off by bombs anywhere. And if you built ghost shields around yourself, it was even better.

Now about 15 of us were up on top. The Volcano’s summit was a vast, rocky land with a column of smoke rising in the very center. Near it was a building; the only building. I assumed that building was the headquarters. We’d have to get there and defeat all these Regulars. 

If you were Stickied, you couldn’t fly off, but you could still easily die if you weren’t careful with your shields or if you had a weak spot in them. If you died while Stickied it almost looked as if you were hanged, which was worse. From up here, I could pick off the Regulars that were fighting from below and trying to pinpoint the Stickied Regulars’ openings in their shields. Once I got lucky and my cannon slipped right through a Regular’s shield (I think his name was Green) right before his ghost crate conjured. It nailed him right in the chest. 

Now, all 90 of us were at the summit, compared to about 80 Regulars that were left. The battle of the Volcano raged on. Cannons were exchanged, spirits were conjured, and the hail of anvils and crates were like dark rain in the sky. Slowly but surely we inched along, getting closer and closer to the building that loomed ahead.

I dropped my Sticky and fought in close combat. A paper was crumpled on the ground; I managed to snatch it and shove it in my belt. 

“Watch out!” said Blue, and I whirled around and flung my Zangetsu. It sliced the Regular that was right in front of me, who was just about to conjure a deadly cannon. I gratefully thanked Blue, who nodded. I moved on, more alert than ever. That was lucky.

Hours went on, and more lives were given up. I painfully watched my fellow comrades get struck by cannons. But I also saw that we were downing more Regulars than they were than us. We had almost reached the building, and the Regulars were backing off. I couldn’t believe how well this was going, despite our losses.

But suddenly the door to the building exploded and flung off its hinges. Even the Regulars froze and watched a lone mouse, a dark gray Shaman, walk out. 

“What is this?” the mouse said harshly.  
Nobody spoke for a while. Nobody even attempted to fire anything at the mouse; this was so sudden and unexpected. Clearly, the Regulars weren’t expecting this Regular to show up. 

I spoke, dumbly. “We’re taking this over.”  
The gray Shaman laughed. “Take this over? Take it… take it… hah!” he cried, laughing hysterically. We looked towards each other, confused and feeling very awkward. 

But then the mysterious mouse became serious again. “You might take these mice down around me, but you cannot take down me, Polygone.” And staring right at me he conjured a double cannon so fast that I could barely blink before the cannon slammed me in the shoulder and I flew to the edge of the summit. Groaning, I slowly got back up. I had no feeling in my left shoulder.

“You are going nowhere,” he told us. “Try me.”  
Not a moment later, I heard Pompomball simply say, “Okay,” and went right up to Polygone and slapped him in the face. 

The Regulars gasped, the rebels froze, and despite this crazy situation I tried hard not to stifle a laugh. 

“You bit-…” Poly began.   
Chesseo didn’t let him finish. He conjured a cannon into the crowd, and the battle continued. 

I managed to shield myself and then tried to help fight, but I knew that I couldn’t keep this up for long. I considered going down to the base where Tree and the others were treating the wounded, but I ignored the thought and continued shooting cannons.

Soon, it looked like we were about to win. There were only about 15 Regulars and Poly left. We didn’t let up, though; we were on fire now. The Regulars were going to give up…

But then I saw a mass of mice climbing up to the summit. No. It couldn’t be. No…

But yes, as I had feared, a mass group of Regulars bearing the Council insignia were climbing to the summit and joining the fight. They had reinforcements. And they had probably cleared the base before coming up. 

I rushed to our side of the edge of the summit. There was nobody there. I groaned, and tried to think about what to do. The rebels were backing off now. We thought we were winning, but now the Regulars had us 3 to 1. Should we retreat of die fighting? There wasn’t much time… 

…and then suddenly, out of nowhere, came the loudest rumble from the Volcano yet. After all these fast, unexpected turns of events, what was this now?

Among all the spirits and cannons, the volcano rumbled louder and louder. The battle ceased yet again, and the two sides were slowly retreating backwards as if they knew what would happen. If it did… there was a lot more things at stake than just taking over this summit. 

It hadn’t erupted before. I wanted to trust my knowledge but I couldn’t help thinking…

And before I could say anything the rock near the flaming and bubbling smoke and lava exploded, and lava shot up into the sky and started raining deadly fire. 

“RETREAT!” I yelled as loud as I could. “RETREAT! GO BACK!” As fast as I could, I simply jumped off the side of the cliff, falling down at a great speed.

I was weightless as I freefalled and saw the lava from above rain down and fall down the sides of the Volcano with a violent shudder and explosion. I conjured spirits far underneath me to slow me down, and then shot myself outwards as far away from the Volcano as possible. I was separated from all the others and every one of us were scattered around. I didn’t know how we’d find each other, but all we cared about was escaping. The summit was now distant memory from my mind as I raced the lava and ash into the woods. 

A huge rock carried by an enormous gust of ash and wind was flying right towards me. I could barely spirit myself up before the rock zoomed past. 

And then after a rush of adrenaline and intense fear I was deep in the woods, not knowing where I was or what I had to do. I only kept running, dodging any obstacles in my way, hoping that somewhere I’d run into one of my fellow comrades.


	15. The Hunt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Codes to crack and the Orb to find.

**1**

I didn’t know where I was going. I must have been a mile or so into the forest now. I might have gone deeper into Regular territory, or maybe I was safe in rebel territory. Wherever I was, I had no idea. The only thing that was on my mind was to reach anybody, Regular or rebel, so I knew where I was. I could still hear the explosive blasts of the Volcano in the distance. Something in me still feared that the blasts would reach me, so I just kept going.

After what seemed like eternity, I came across another clearing. I ventured in hesitantly, but saw that nothing was present here. I was getting tired, and by now I assumed that the Volcano was a safe distance away, so I just gathered myself and collected my thoughts together. I breathed a sigh of relief. 

Right now, there was nobody with me. We were pretty much all alone in scattered parts of the Badlands. Some might have perished at the Volcano. But right now, the Volcano wasn’t on any of our minds. We needed to escape until the volcanic eruptions stopped, and then maybe we could think about going back. The most important thing on my mind right now was getting all of us back together and then deciding what to do next.

I stayed where I was for about half an hour. I gave myself ample time to eat from my food supply and restore any Magik that I might have lost when I heard a rustling in the forest. I quickly whirled around me and got out my cannon. If this was a group of Regulars, my chances of living were not good.

But as a lone figure burst out from the foliage, the only thing I could say was, “Tree!” as she came out, panting and looking at me with a look of surprise and happiness. There was no awkwardness separating us, not after all that had happened. We embraced in a tight hug. 

“I thought that the Regulars had killed all of you,” I said.   
“No, of course not. That’s the only hope you had?” she replied, looking into my eyes with a frown. 

“No, no… it was just that when I looked down from the summit, nobody was there.”  
“We heard a group coming, and we didn’t think they were Regulars. So we hid out by the edge of the clearing and watched as the reinforcements arrived. I could only hope that you guys would hang out when the unthinkable happened.” Tree looked away.

“Yeah. The Volcano changes a lot of things,” I agreed. “Do you have any idea where the others are?”  
“They know where Renith is. They’d probably escape to there. But you never know. I got lost, and stumbled on this clearing… and noticed that you were here,” Tree replied.

“It’s lucky you did. I would have been stuck here forever; I don’t know my way around.”  
“I’ll help you,” Tree told me with a reassuring look on her face.

I looked into her face, and was about to say something, but just nodded. 

“So, where should we go?” she asked me.   
“Um, I was kind of thinking that my group from the Mainland won’t know their way around either.”  
She looked surprised. “That’s right! I didn’t realize that. I don’t know where they are; the Badlands are huge…”

I shrugged. “We’ll find them later. The rebels are tough. They’ll hold on long enough. But for now…”  
“Let’s go to Renith?”  
“Yep.”

We didn’t really know where we were going. We just headed in a general southern direction in hopes of coming across a path that was familiar to Tree. Once we got to a familiar spot, then we could backtrack to Renith. We had all agreed that if the siege on the Volcano failed, then we would meet up somehow at Renith. The problem was that the Delta group, my group, didn’t know where Renith was. They’d have to just travel south and guess. 

After hours, we came across a well-traveled path. I looked at Tree, who was standing beside me, and saw her eyes light up. 

“This is the Main Path,” she told me. “If we just follow this path for… I guess, an hour, then there should be a short path that could get us to Renith in minutes.”  
“Sounds cool,” I replied with a bit of energy returning to me. “Let’s go.”

So we traveled along the path, quietly, just looking at the sight of the forest and listening intently for anyone that might be near. The moment was a bit awkward, and we would not say anything to each other unless it was important. She had a determined look in her eyes that made me conclude that it was best to just leave her alone.

Finally, after a little more than an hour’s exhausting walk past acres of plain forest, we reached a fork in the road. 

“This must be it,” Tree said brightly. “If we take the left path, we’ll be at the entrance of Renith soon.”

And alas we were; after a tiring expedition, we finally looked at the menacing, indestructible entrance to the main base of the Badlands. Taking out a small blue stone, she held the stone out to the entrance. I saw a swirl of Magik escape from the stone and dissolve into the entrance. With a large, groaning hiss, the opening to Renith gave way and we stepped inside.

The base looked like it was last time, only that the atmosphere was colder and it felt emptier. As we made our way across the stronghold, I could only see a few mice doing whatever they usually did. The mice that were left behind. They looked at us with surprise, then went back to their work. We passed the central well, past a few large apothecaries, and made our way towards the main hut. I held the curtain opening for Tree, and we both went in.

The first thing I noticed was that basically everybody that went to the siege was here. They chatted among themselves silently, eating Badland cheese. In the far side of the hut was the grand table, with Mipp, Kiytt, Homegood, and Tommato talking to each other. At first I just thought it as it was and looked away when I realized that Homegood and Tommato were part of Delta. I quickly looked around and saw that most of the Delta group was in here! I smiled and walked over to their table. 

“Hey,” I said to Homegood.  
“Simple!” he replied. “So you made it through?”  
“Yeah. I was a bit worried because you didn’t know where Renith…”  
“We didn’t. We just walked south, and by pure chance ran right into Mipp’s group. We thought they were Regulars at first, and we fired, but nobody got hurt. It’s all good now.”

Well, I was glad that was settled. “What about the others?”  
Kiytt answered. “The others are still making their way here or they’re lost. Some didn’t make it.” Mipp nodded in agreement. “It’s nice to see you and Tree, though.”  
“We both got lost. By pure chance we met each other and made our way here,” I explained.

“Well, it’s good that you did. Most of us made it through okay. But we have a lot to talk about,” Tommato told me. And he was right. We had a lot to talk about. But for the time being, we just passed on friendly conversation and accepted that this could’ve been a lot worse. Fate had decided to bring us where we were today.

After the warm welcome, and dark had fallen over our quiet base, the six of us gathered around the table. Nobody said a word; we just sat there, thinking. It was time to get serious again. In my belt I felt that piece of paper that I had snatched from the floor while escaping from the Volcano. I ignored it for now.

“So…” I began, weakly. “The Volcano.”  
“What about it?” said Tommato, raising an eyebrow.  
“It’s just that… it hasn’t ever erupted like that before,” I said. “And to erupt at that specific time was probably as unlucky as you could get.”

“But I think it was worth it,” Mipp countered. “Their reinforcements were coming in. Sheer luck that volcano erupted just in time. What happened surprised me a lot, and I thought about it for a long time, but consider us lucky. If it hadn’t erupted, we had to either make a weak retreat or all of us had to die fighting.”

We agreed. “So then, what’s our next step?” Tree said.   
“Right now, the Badlands are disputed. I don’t think it’s that clear who won. The battle will be raging on here for a while, now that the Volcano’s blown,” Kiytt pointed out. “I think… I’m thinking back with the mysterious message about that orb. I can’t help thinking that it might be true, and the prophecy of a Gold Shaman.” 

I had been thinking about that too.

“It’s farfetched, but I think that mouse was serious when that- when Blue wrote it,” Homegood said. “He wouldn’t just write that kind of stuff down for fun.” Slowly, we were beginning to convince ourselves that the journal was true.

“But we have no idea where to find that orb or the Gold Shaman at all,” I said. The group looked at me. “Except for the dream I had,” I added, remembering the dream where the older Mipp had told me that I was the Gold Shaman. “But dreams rarely come true.”  
“I don’t know about that,” Mipp said.  
“Alright, enough about who’s the Gold shaman,” Kiytt said. “How the hell do we find this place? The only other island other than the Mainland and the Badlands is the Bootcamp island, and that’s just disputed territory. There isn’t a secret stronghold that has an orb there.”

We talked long and hard about what could be possible locations for this ‘secret island’. Many of us said that it’d be put off to the side somewhere, but Homegood and Mipp countered that it might be hidden somewhere in a secret place on the Mainland or the other islands. Then, I remembered my piece of paper.

“I picked this up while escaping from the eruption,” I said. “I don’t think it’s much; it’s just a bunch of random words or blocks of text or something. But it might be worth inspecting.” I had gone over this paper many times, trying to look for some pattern. But it was useless gibberish. There wasn’t even invisible ink. It was probably part of an old notebook for scratch paper.

“Let me see,” Tommato said. I gave it to him. He inspected it, shrugged, and laid the paper out.

The top half of the paper read:

gsv rhozmw   
lu gsv liy   
rh olxzgvw zg   
gsv kozxv   
dsviv gsv gdl klrmgh   
lu gsv hdliw   
xilhh

The bottom half of the paper said:

uif psc   
xjmm pomz hjwf jutfmg   
up uif npvtfn   
uibu jt xpsuiz

We pondered over this for a long while. I didn’t know any of those words, like ‘rhozmw’. What did that mean? Was this in some strange, ancient language? But then again, some of the pronunciations were off… even impossible. Like ‘xilhh’… but then again, you never know.

“I have no idea how to do this,” I said. “I tried every single thing to get something secret to pop up, but I didn’t even bother trying to figure out what the random letters are. Perhaps it’s a secret message…?”  
“Probably,” Tree commented. “Or just a lunatic’s frantic scribbles.”  
We just looked at the paper, probably wasting our time over a useless document, until Homegood spoke up.

“Wait!” he told us. “I know a couple tricks of my own. I learned this from my friend back when we could still Run. When we wanted to share messages, we’d use this code. It’s pretty easy to crack, but many mice don’t know how to do this.”  
“So what is it?” Mipp asked, impatient.  
“I call it the inverted alphabet.”  
“The what?” we all asked in unison. 

“The inverted alphabet. It’s a bit tricky, but pretty straightforward. I don’t think this is in some ancient language. It’s a code. There are 26 letters in our standard alphabet, right?”   
We nodded.

“So if you invert them, then you can get a completely different alphabet. Like the letter A would become Z, and B would become Y, and so on.”  
I started to get it. “So all we need to do is write down a sheet of the inverted letters, plug them in, and we get our message?” I asked.  
“Pretty much.”

I still didn’t think that even if we cracked this code, the information would be useless. But it was worth a shot. Slowly, we began converting the letters. 

“I think this one’s a T… and then a… an H… and the last one’s an E… THE. THE’s the first word,” Tree exclaimed. We looked over and saw that she was right. We gave ourselves different parts of the message. Slowly but surely, we cracked the code.

After an hour, we all said, “Got it.” We looked at each other, wondering if this would work out. We laid our pieces of paper together, top to bottom.

the island   
of the orb   
is located at   
the place   
where the two points   
of the swords  
cross

“We did it!” Kiytt said. “The message is clear… Simple, I think this piece of paper that you picked up can lead us to the place where the orb is!” she said excitedly.  
But I had doubts. “Okay, the message isn’t gibberish. Great job, by the way, Homegood,” I said, nodding to him. Without his keen advice we wouldn’t have done this. “But the message doesn’t make sense. What does the message mean by the place where the two points of the swords cross?”

We thought about this for a moment. “Well, let’s just decode the bottom half and see if we can learn anything more,” Tommato concluded. 

But this half of the paper was confusing. While decoding, I realized that the words didn’t make sense. I could tell that the others were noticing this as well. 

“Hey, guys,” I said. Tree looked at me. “And girls. There’s something wrong here.”  
“Yeah,” Homegood said. “The inverted alphabet doesn’t work. It’s a different code. I don’t know anything except for that one.”

We laid our pieces top to bottom. 

fru khx   
cqnn klna sqdu qfgunt   
fk fru mkegum   
fryf qg ckhfra

“It doesn’t make sense,” Mipp said. “It’s got to be something else. So let’s just focus on the first one for now.”  
We studied the decoded message. What could it mean? Suddenly, I had an idea.  
“Do you have a map of the realm?” I asked Tree.  
“Of course,” she replied, reaching for a medium-sized scroll on a shelf. She laid it out, and we inspected the map.

The Mainland was in the center, and the Bootcamps were at the right while the Badlands were at the left. It was pretty much a large island in the center with two smaller islands at the sides. There was nothing too astounding, and I was about to tell Tree to put the map away when I noticed that the northern sides of the smaller islands had points.

“Does the northern side of the Badlands have a sharp point?” I asked the group.  
“Yes, but it’s strictly Regular territory. We wouldn’t dare go there,” Kiytt replied.   
“I think I just figured out what the message means,” I said, my eyes bright. I grabbed my charcoal and plotted the points of the northern islands. I carefully traced a line in the direction that the northern points were facing. Soon, the lines intersected at the top-right side of the paper. I marked an X where the lines I drew crossed. The others began to realize what I had just done. 

“Simple, you’re a genius,” Homegood told me.  
“This,” I said, with a small smile, “is the location of where we will find our freedom.”

**2**

Everything was quiet. There was silence all around the dark forest. Everybody was sleeping, but I just lay there with my eyes wide open. I thought about the second half of the message. What could it be? For now, we were going to travel even farther than we had getting to the Badlands; we were going to go to the Island of the Orb. We’d have to switch dimensions first, and gather up as many mice as we could. We’d be going back to the dimension of the Mainland, and finish this war once and for all. This is what it all boiled down to, I realized. Getting the orb. I didn’t know if I was the Gold Shaman, or how I was the Gold Shaman; I was just blue when I used Magik, as everybody else. I soon fell asleep, putting all those thoughts on hold. 

A dream. A rush of energy sweeps through me as I feel a gust of wind blowing by my face. I am surprised to see myself in the distance, next to Tree. I walk up to them. I try to put a paw on my ‘dream’ me, but my paw just goes through. Like a ghost. I look at myself and notice that I’m transparent. A weird dream, I think. I turn around and realize that we’re on a small enough island, an island that I’d never seen before. In the distance, I see an immense, looming building and I realize that this must be the island of the orb. I look out to the sea and see the Boundary.

But then, a spark of energy ignites the entire blue haze of the Boundary, and it fizzles away. I almost cry out in joy, when I realize that this is a dream. 

And then I hear a voice. My voice. And I’m surprised with what I hear.

“Tree,” the dream me says. I whirl around and see me facing the girl that I love.   
“I know what you’re going to say,” she replies. “And I’m sorry, but you know what my answer is going to be.”

“Tree,” he says again. “But why?” Tears start to form in his eyes, and when I realize what is happening, I find myself doing the same. Everything is cheesy in a romance scene when you’re not part of it.

“Because I don’t love you,” she replies with a harsh tone. “I tried to stop you from it. I tried to be nice. But I don’t. I didn’t love you and I never will.” she pulls away from ‘me’, and gives ‘me’ a final look of what looked like pity before turning and walking away, entering the small building not far from where we stood. 

‘I’ don’t try to stop her. Instead, he just stays there, letting one tear fall, and walks up to me. I’m surprised when he puts a hand on my shoulder and says, “Don’t let yourself make the same mistake as I did.” And everything fades away, and as I wake up from my dream I feel a wrenching sorrow in my heart where the hopes of love once were.

\---

I looked in the distance. I checked the map, and then looked at the control rune. We were headed in the right direction; strung up by balloons again, we were high in the sky, but now we had support runes from the salvage on our side and we had a lot more airships to carry all of us. 

A lot had happened in the last week or so. I always tried to shrug off that dream, but every time I look at Tree I can’t help thinking that she doesn’t have any feelings for me. Why would she? The thought had plagued my mind, distracting me from what I was expected to do. More than once I screwed up a placement of a board while we were making the 10 airships we had with us. 

These were the best mice we could find. These rebels were going to be part of the final battle at the Creators’ coast. I wasn’t completely sure if my calculations from the message were correct, but this was our only chance. The orb’s power tempted all of us. We needed to get the orb, no matter what the coast.

On the airships were all of the best of the best rebels we could find from all the dimensions. For a week we had traveled the dimensions, recruiting the best mice. It was a long and dangerous task, with all the battle activity. But we got the job done, and now we were all on the Mainland’s dimension, only hours away from our designated location.

I still hadn’t solved the code on the second half of that message. I wondered all week on what it could be, but I was stumped. I let it be for now. 

All of Delta was here, including some of my closest friends and leaders from every dimension, all seven of them. I reflected on all that had happened since the Scorching, the signal for the beginning of the war. Countless months had gone by. Before, I was just an ordinary mouse that was unsure of his duties. Now, I was a mouse that didn’t hesitate to take chances and risk death for his friends and allies. I had accepted the role as Leader.

War came with a cost. My closest friends and countless rebels had died. So much that I couldn’t even begin to count. Nightmares and visions had reminded me of these deaths ever so often. I regretted having to take part of what we had today, but choices were limited. Freedom was a bitter word on my tongue. 

Flashbacks from my earliest memories when I came to this strange realm appeared. I saw the tornado that had appeared when I first saw this mysterious place, and the note that had followed. The note that would enable you to become a Regular. I still did not have that third final title, Shamarvelous, because the Runs had ended and the Scorching had begun. I had become very close, at just under a thousand saves. But it did not matter to me now.

The memory of my first Wall Jump, with the burst of Magik, came to me now. The forming of the tribe Rebellion. The first experiences I had with Bootcamp and Racing. The long period of time where I trained harder than ever before and greatly improved in my skills. And my first titles of honor. 

The memories and moments went through my mind faster and faster, until they were a blur until I came to and realized that I had come a long, long way.

“Cocoa,” I asked. “What’s the ETA?”  
“About an hour,” he replied. Then we weren’t far off. We’d have to ready ourselves to battle stations, put up shields on the airships, and prepare for landing.

The plan was this; the Regulars weren’t just going to let us land. There would be some kind of aerial battle. So we had prepared ghost shields and cannon slots for the occasion. It would be a classic ship battle; but in the air. If we managed to scrape through that, we’d land quickly and immediately take cover and make our way towards the island’s central base. We’d breach it and secure the area in as few casualties as possible. It was going to be the hardest battle we’d fight in the course of the entire war, but I believed in ourselves. We could win. 

But the Regulars were stronger, faster, and better equipped than us. There was an equal chance of failing than us winning. We needed to be on high alert.

I looked out in the distance, balloons in the air with the wind whipping against my face. Pompom came to me. I hadn’t talked to her in a while; I was surprised to see her. But she was still my friend, and we greeted each other.

“So you nervous?” she asked, with a neutral tone.  
“Not really,” I lied. “You?”  
“A bit,” she admitted. “There’s a slim chance of us winning this battle.”  
“I believe in the rebels. If we put our minds to it, we can win,” I reassured her.   
“I hope so,” she said. “But we don’t even know what the Regular strength will be like. Who knows how many of them are there?”

“But we have the small element of surprise,” I said. “They don’t know that we know where they are. They’re guard the island well, all right, but we should get through the air easily enough. The hard part is on the ground.”  
She looked at me with uncertainty. “You’re…”  
“What?” I replied, confused.   
“You’re so confident,” she said. “You’re positive and optimistic about everything. It’s a good thing about you.”

I didn’t know what to say. “I…”  
“Remember long ago when I taught you the wall jump?” she asked, changing the subject.   
I did, with a chuckle. “Yeah. That seemed so long ago.” I realized that back then, she was one of my only friends. But now she was just… a friend. I should have noticed her more often. I should have been nicer. She was still alive, and she was still fighting for her freedom.   
“I never even said thank you for that,” I told her.   
“Pssh.”  
“Thanks.”  
“You’re welcome,” she said. We were silent for a while. 

I spoke. “You know, the confidence thing wasn’t me. I never taught myself that. I learned it from someone,” I said, thinking of Tree and her unbridled confidence.  
“From who?”   
“Just… someone.”

Minutes passed. Pompom startled me by saying, “Look!” I whirled towards the vast open, and saw a thin outline… of an island.   
“I was… I was right!” I exclaimed. “The Creator’s island!”   
We looked at each other. “I’ll get Cocoa,” both of us said at the same time. We laughed, and both ran there together.

After we locked in our course, we immediately got ready for battle stations. We set up ghosts all over the ship, and signaled the other ships to do the same. We also made cannon holes for protection from other cannons but allowing a small hole for weapons. We put on our gear and got ready. We crouched beside the edge of the ship, waiting for us to get close enough to the island… and the Regulars to strike.

Just before we could see the distinct outlines of the final island of the war looming towards us, I suddenly got an idea. I got out a piece of coal and a piece of paper. 

uif psc   
xjmm pomz hjwf jutfmg   
up uif npvtf   
uibu jt xpsuiz

I drew the second half of the code in the message out, and counted each letter back one. I was certain that this would work. It was a shifted alphabet! Quickly, I filled in the blanks. The result was:

the orb   
will only give itself   
to the mouse   
that is worthy


	16. Carpe Diem

**1**

The first explosion rather caught us by surprise. Almost. We were riding in stealth, in the artificial clouds. After we got our course, it was all business. We went through our entire plan again, and readied ourselves for what could be the final battle of the war. 

“We’ve been to hell and back together,” I told my group. “Hardships, obstacles… deaths,” I said with my head down. “But today, those lives will not be lost in vain. This battle will be won. We will defeat our Creators, and we will break the Boundary and find our freedom once and for all.

“No matter what happens, I just want to say that you’ve been an amazing group of rebels. You’ve worked as hard as you could to get here. You deserve to be free. And after this battle, that will become true.” And with that, I nodded. I didn’t expect the cheers and standing ovation to follow, but I took it silently and then walked away to my station.

Homegood followed me. “Simple.”  
I turned around. “Yeah?”  
“I just wanted to say that it’s been a really good time."  
I smiled. “Same here. Let’s hope we’ll see each other on the other side.”

It was then quiet in the ship. With a sigh, I thought about the war. Tree tried to come into my mind. I brushed it off. I went over all the possible techniques I could even imagine with a cannon. 

Cheerydog came to me. “There’s a couple of clouds up ahead. Should we fly in it?”  
“Sure. It’d be an even better surprise for the Regulars.”

So we signaled the other ships, and together we flew silently, not even whispering to each other, in the clouds. We only trusted our pilots, Cocoaone and Gregory, and their fair judgement of where we would be. 

I realized that this was the riskiest battle of them all. I would probably die. It didn’t matter now; too many mice had died for me, and now if the occasion arose it would be my turn to take my life for the others. The ones that deserved it. 

Suddenly, a red haze was visible in the clouds until they parted enough to show a great, gleaming cannon crash into the side of our ship. The guide rune in the center of the ship shuddered and fizzled as it tried to take in the damage. Immediately we began shooting into nowhere, only using arrows to hide ourselves. But I had a feeling that we had already been spotted.

“Is the ship going to sink?” I asked Cocoa, harshly.  
“We have a backup,” he reassured me. “And our current one’s going to hold out, but barely. I’ll try my best to control it. If worst comes to worst then we’ll portal ourselves out.”

Good old Cocoa. I told Gregory to set our course out of the clouds, and to signal the other ships to do so as well. 

“Set up full ghost shields! Man the cannons! This is now a live battle! C’mon!” I shouted into the ship. I ran across into my station and readied my pack of arrows. We would be out of the clouds in three… two… one…

And with a whoosh of air, we were directly under the Creator’s coast, a boomerang shaped island that was desolate and bare except for a few dense patches of forest. Below I could manage to see a circular base that was domed off like Renith. I sighed and scouted the air. There was the aerial fleet of Regular ships, ghosted and padded off. We had to aim for our respective cannon slots. 

“Hold your fire,” I warned the group. They looked towards me, surprised. “Wait.”

The ships became closer and closer to ours until I could barely see the scurrying Regulars on board. Still I held my paw up, waiting for the right moment to aim our cannons right.

Just when I started to see a red spark ignite from one of their ships’ cannon slots, I shouted “FIRE!” and all hell broke loose. 

It was like a shower of cannons in all directions. Quickly we took cover and shielded ourselves. A few cannons got in the ship and the guide rune continued to whirr and splutter. I gritted my teeth and shot my cannons, aiming only for the small openings in the ships. 

As you beat down the ghost shields, however, they become weaker and weaker until it breaks altogether. So it was an open battle as well. The question was, which ship’s shield would give in first? I was worried that our shields were not strong enough. 

Arrows flew back and forth, crates and cannons flew in the air, and the aerial battle continued. I couldn’t even explain it in words. In the distance, shadows of objects flew in the sky as they collided with sparks and thuds. Every time a cannon made contact with our ship, it shuddered and threatened to give. If we went in an airship battle with the ship we used to get to the Badlands, we’d be screwed over. 

One of our ships’ shields broke off, but not a moment after a Regular ship’s shield broke off as well. It was an open battle over there. I concentrated on our ship as we slowly but surely wore off each others’ shields.

Time passed, and soon everyone’s shields were off. I saw Regulars and rebels alike get hit, some fatally, some forced off the side of the ship and falling hundreds of meters below into the sea of lava. 

I ducked, rolled, and shot my way through the battle, adrenaline at its peak, covering for my friends. My survivor skills went on high alert as I rode cannons to the top of my ship and shot from there. Upcannons, downcannons, and feints were crucial in knocking mice off their ships. Regular cannons were too predictable.

Our enemy ship began sending flaming anvils toward us. We responded with a special assist called a water ground, which was basically water suspended in the air. It didn’t stop the anvil from crushing the side of the ship, however. It looked as if we were going to have to abandon into another ship. We had switched guide runes a while ago and even this one was getting weaker and weaker.

With a stone-cold look on our faces, we continued on, using spirits to knock off the cannons coming our way and using our feints and angled cannons to aim in the their cannon slots. Many of the weapons fired ended up colliding with each other in the air. The good thing about arrows was that although they were weak, they could be fired in a ghost form and it’d still do physical damage. Which meant that they couldn’t collide. Cannons could be in ghost form but it’d still collide with other cannons. 

Just as our rune threatened to shut off, and I was about to fire a blue portal, our enemy’s ship shuddered and suddenly tilted sharply. Surprised, I looked and saw that their guide rune had shut off. Many of us just stopped fighting and watched the Regulars attempt to realign themselves. But the ship looked as if it was going to stay tilted, and it was now quite literally an uphill battle. 

Chesseo shouted, “Don’t stop firing! Don’t pity them because they suck at fighting.” And with that, he shot a perfect cannon into a slot, damaging quite a section of the ship. 

I cannoned myself up to the crow’s nest of the ship and realized that there was a crucial beam of their ship exposed. I aimed a cannon, fired, and missed. My second try hit the ship but again, it missed. 

The third time’s the charm, I thought, and aimed very carefully now. A bit up, a bit to the right… I fired, and this time it tore right through the beam and the ship just split in half, quite literally. Surprisingly, it still floated in the air, but it was slowly sinking. Satisfied, I shot a few more cannons and shouted below. “Tell the pilots to get below! We’re going to land on the island!”

The last hour was us fighting two halves of a ship, going down together. It was clear that they were going to attempt to portal somewhere, but they were too far away to get anywhere safe. They would eventually drown in the sea of lava. We almost poked fun at the Regulars stuck in the halved ship, just using spirits to make them run around. Soon, we were almost about to land. 

“Alright, stop the torture,” Pliked said to the ship. “That was just the easy part.” 

And with the army of Regulars all too visible in the distance, I couldn’t help thinking that it was true.

We were almost level with the ground now. We saw the Regulars run towards us, already shouting and wielding arrows and cannons. Here we go again, I thought. I didn’t wait for the ship to touch down. I just jumped off, landed sharply, and built the strongest anchor I could afford to spend with my Magik. 

The first projectile from the Regulars came. But this weapon was different. It didn’t have a regular whistling like the other cannons. We stopped and looked at the black object coming towards us. 

“What could it be?” Chesseo asked, looking at the object coming downwards towards us with a hard face.   
“I think… I think that…” I looked at the cannon again, and finally realized that it wasn’t a cannon.

It was a bomb!

“GET THE HELL OUT OF THERE!” I shouted. “IT’S A BOMB!-”

And at that moment, the bomb exploded on the ground and shook the entire area with a tremendous blast. I saw rebels fly in the air, arms flailing, flames blazing. This was a different battle, and it was not in our favor. 

“Just outmaneuver them!” I called out. “Find a way around, and fight your way through if you need to! We don’t have time to fight here!”

I quickly shot a cannon, feinted to the right, and hit a few Regulars to the left. I barely ducked under a fast-flying balloon cannon and dove out of the way of a crate. I spirited yet another cannon coming towards me, shooting cannons randomly the whole time. My instincts came on full alert. 

I barely scraped through a few more cannons, set up a ghost shield, and luckily hit a cannon at just the right angle to propel myself up in the air. I used spirits and then an anchor to suspend myself in the air, at least temporarily. I was prone to arrows now, but I could shield myself with ghosts. From here, I had a nice aim of the battlefield. But this wouldn’t last long. 

I picked off as many Regulars as I could, all the while moving forward, advancing in ground. It was a brute head-to-head battle between the Regulars and the rebels. Neither side was giving up, but it was clear that our side was losing. We had to get a way around.

I dropped my anchor just as a bomb blew my balloon up. I rolled away and fought my way towards the group, finding new energy and agility on my side. 

“Guys,” I told Chesseo, Homegood, Tree, Mipp, and a few others. “You need to tell the others to…” I couldn’t finish my sentence as a cannon flew towards us. We all dodged it, barely.   
“Back to back,” Tree said. “Continue.” 

We got into a circle, guarding each other’s backs with spirits and cannons. Meanwhile, as I was shooting arrows into the Regular crowd, I continued. 

“You need to tell the others that if we just fight head on, we’re going to lose and we’re all going to die. We need to go around the Regulars and outmaneuver them. They’re way too strong for us to just… argh!” I summoned the hardest spirit as I could to deflect a cannon hurtling itself right at my face. 

“Are you alright?” Tree asked, a bit surprised since she was right at my back.   
“Never better,” I said, swallowing. “They’re too strong for us to just feebly charge into. What we need is to get through underground or by air, and leave half of the rebels here to try and breach a way in on the ground.”

“Good idea,” she replied, nodding. “I’ll go tell the others. Just hang in there for a bit!” Sprinting, she dove her way into safe territory. That was fine and all, but now… I was on my own.

I had to guard myself. I quickly set up the basic anchor planks to defend myself and a couple anvil walls as well. I started to retreat from the oncoming Regular cannons and just hung on as best as I could. I didn’t let any of my battle tricks go to waste; I kept my attack and defense simple, but creative. I set up a couple one-way traps to stop Regulars from crossing, but it wouldn’t hold them for long. 

The noise was loud enough to make me have a good amount of hearing loss. After a long period of time I became used to the roaring anvils, spirits, crates and cannons and I eventually learned to mute it out. But I think part of that might have had to do with my hearing loss. 

I had to get out. I couldn’t just stay here and eventually be shot down by a stray spirit or cannon. I couldn’t just rely on my skill all the time. Did Tree tell them about the plan yet? I made my way slowly but surely into our rebel base. 

I finally crossed the boundary line between our landing spot and the main warzone, tired and fatigued. Almost an hour I had been shooting spirits, growing weaker with every shot and getting more inaccurate every time I lifted up my arms to conjure a cannon once more. I thought back to so long ago when Chesseo had given me the lesson on Conjuring: “Even if you’re a very experienced Shaman, you will eventually run out of Magik. You need to control your Magik so that you can use it for as long as possible.” I was on the bleeding edge. 

Our landing had turned into a makeshift hospital, with Vlads and the others treating injured mice. I looked around, but Tree was nowhere to be seen. In fact, I couldn’t see anybody in sight that belonged to Delta except for Sabusha and Vlads, who were treating an injured rebel with a broken leg. I sighed in despair and decided to stay put. 

\--- 

I was dizzy and tired. Tunnel vision. I lay down on the cold ground and felt myself drift into sleep; but it was disrupted sooner than I’d wanted when I felt a kick to my side.

“Ow!” I shouted, and opened my eyes to see Tree, arms folded, Delta behind her. I smiled, and got up.   
Tree was not amused. “On the turning point of the war, this is what you do?” She gave a small ‘Hmmph!’ and waited for me to speak, impatiently.

“Sorry, I was just a bit too tired. I’m not happy too, you leaving me out there for an hour to fend for myself,” I defended. “So, we have Delta? And the plan?”

“We’re going to split up a couple different ways and meet at the Regular complex that we can’t seem to breach no matter how hard we rally,” Homegood said, stepping out from behind. “Some of us are going to go by air, although there will be a couple airships that we need to fend off up there, no doubt.”  
“We’re going to send a few of our scouts to see if we can branch a way around the island, but the rest of us are going to dig our way underground,” Tommato finished for him. “To dig fast, we need to use cannons charmed with runes. It’s going to make a hell of a lot of noise but I think it’d just blend in with the deafening noise that there is already, don’t you think?” We nodded in agreement, looking out into the distance where we could see black dots far away that were cannons.

“So, when is this going to start?” I asked the group.  
“Now,” Tree said, and slammed a charmed cannon deep into the ground.

We dug the tunnel with charmed cannons. The good thing about conjuring things is that they don’t last forever when they’re charmed; they eventually fade away. Almost like that object was something that never existed, only an illusion. The disappearing objects were weird, but it wasn’t too much of a big deal because if we used solid cannons, then the tunnel would be clogged with all of our ammo. 

We formed a horizontal line, shoulders touching each other, building a wide tunnel. Every cannon that hit the wall in from of us made a deafening sound, and we pretty much couldn’t talk to each other over the noise. We had to concentrate on the tunnel as well. Each of us had to be in sync; together.

Gregory did a pretty good job in keeping all of us together. He had sketched out a map of the overall area aboveground, and he was guiding us to go towards the Regulars’ base. Without him, I think we’d be digging straight off the island into the ocean or something.

Gregory held up his hand, and because we were so immersed in digging it took a while for us to stop. “Alright, here’s where we cross the general line between Regular and rebel territory,” he said, pointing upwards. We nodded, and I covered my ears. I felt a deafening buzz; I think that wasn’t a very good sign. After that, the volume of the rumbling of cannons got softer; but I didn’t know if that was because I was getting used to the sound or I was just having hearing loss. 

Dirt threatened to cave down on us from above, and we were dirty with all that trudging around. Many of us were getting tired. But all of us didn’t want to give up. We had gone through too much to get to this island and we weren’t going to give up now. 

But after another half hour of grueling digging, I had to put up my hands. “Let’s take a good break here, and then continue.” The rest of us murmured agreement happily.

I came over to the Kong group, which were Kiytt, Mipp and Tree. They were with Delta’s leaders as well. I heard them talking.

“So where are we now?” Tree asked.  
“Well, we’re about halfway from the territory line and the entrance to the enemy’s stronghold… roughly,” Greg said, staring hard at his map sketch. “Hmm… yes… if we continue in ten minutes with our current pace, we’ll be there in a half hour, an hour tops.”

“Great! We’re that close already?” Mipp exclaimed.   
“There’s still a while to go,” Tom remarked. “And getting to the stronghold’s the easy part. Storming it will be the hardest battle of our entire war…”  
“…we need to go under the building and dig up…”  
“No, come around the back…”  
“They’ll have defenses…”

I listened for a while, then turned away. A few, like Pom and Vlads, turned their heads towards me for a while, but continued. I sat along the wall of the tunnel and just thought about… thought about life. Just in general.

I’d come into this place through a small orb, about a fourth of the size of my paw. It was pearly white, but when I touched the sphere it glowed a dark blue and sucked me in. It was the weirdest feeling; it was as if I was being compressed, and then extended. But there was no pain, only surprise. And then I’d landed in that wooden block that was my first impression of this place, Transformice. 

Before this place I’d worked in my town, Umber, a haven for mice. It was probably the third largest ‘mouse house’ in the world; I had worked a cheese maker in my quiet shop. I’m pretty young, just old enough to marry but old enough to be out of school. I had my friends and my one brother, but he’d moved out and only came rarely.

My parents died in a battle between mice and Nature when I was very young. We just referred to the huge, massive creatures that could kill you with one hand as Nature. It didn’t need anything else.

I guess my life was good. I could do anything I wanted in Umber, I was pretty well-known, I was making ends meet, and I was making a good living. Making cheese was my specialty.

But now I realized that I was trapped. Outside Umber, there was Nature that would kill you at first glance, brutal weather, and no place to live. Mouse houses were the only place where we could live in peace. And I knew that if we won the war with the Regulars, we could call this place the ultimate mouse house. This was our home. And I didn’t want to go back now. This place would be a better place. It’d be what we all wanted.

But first we had to win the war.

Tree came up to me a while later and sat down next to me. “What are you doing? You should have joined us.”  
“Meh, I didn’t really feel like it. I was just thinking to myself.”  
“Of what?”  
I looked right at her. “Home.”

She looked at me real hard, and then her face changed into some form of acknowledgement. “My home was in Yanille.”  
“I lived in Umber.”  
“Not a bad house to live in, right?”  
”Yanille’s better.”  
We looked at each other one more time. We both laughed weakly, and then I told her of what I was thinking of during the break. And as I spoke my words aloud to her, I realized two things. One, that I really believed this and wanted this to happen.

Two, I loved her.

**2**

The rumbling sounds resonated off the wall again, monotonous but loud. It was an endless cycle of conjuring; think, point, shoot, repeat. Think, point, shoot, repeat. That’s all I thought about for the next ten minutes; nothing else.

The war’s climax had reached its pinnacle, and these next hours were going to determine who would finally make it out of the rubble in the end. I always wondered why it’d have to be this way, and why this realm had been created, and why did the Council have to be so harsh on us and cause us to rebel violently. Maybe none of the deaths of the mice that I regarded as my closest friends would happen. Somehow, I blamed myself and me being a leader. 

It was hard to hear over the deafening cannons, but somehow I heard a slight buzz. It was different from the buzzing of my ears because of the noise; it was much more high-pitched. It must have been loud if I could hear what sounded like a laser. I held my hands up.

“Do you hear the buzz?” I asked.  
“No, I hear perfect silence because I haven’t been digging a mile-long tunnel for the past hour…” one mouse began, but Sabs shut him up.

“Not that Simple means that,” Sabusha said, “But I hear a really high-pitched buzz on the right side of the wall.” Some mice put their ears on the wall and eventually nodded in agreement. 

“What could it be?” Lilmouse asked.  
“Well, whatever it is, it’s coming from this way, definitely,” Gregory said matter-of-factly. “Look, it’s getting louder every second.” And after a while, we all saw that this was true. We started chattering anxiously amongst ourselves.

All of us were thinking to ourselves what it could be until I finally understood. “Quiet!” I shouted. I hoped that the Regulars that were digging towards us didn’t hear that outburst.

I quickly told the group, whispering, about my prediction. If things were going bad enough up there, we would be stupid to think that only we would think of digging underground. The Regulars were coming towards us, and we were passing each other very closely. And they probably had much more high-tech digging equipment too, which would explain the buzzing which could be a laser. We had to wait until they passed us, however, before we could start digging again; they’d hear us.

The group took it in. “I think you’re probably right,” Tree said. “If we can dig, why not them?”  
“They just started late, though. We’re ahead,” I told her. “If we can make it out to their base faster than them then we’d be able to sabotage them unknowingly!”  
“Yes, but what about the mice back at our base?” Mipp asked me. “They’re in danger as well.”  
“We could send one or two mice over there and warn them.”

“But the Regulars have much more experience and training,” Homegood remarked. “Even with the warning, they would be unfit to fight both the underground group and the group charging in the main battlefield.”

I thought about it. “You’re right. So… what should we do?”

All of us were silent for a moment. But then Kiytt said, “Well…”  
“What?” we asked in unison.  
Kiytt took a pause before saying the next sentence. “We could sabotage them right now.”  
“Right now?” Tommato exclaimed, then quickly apologized and whispered. “Sorry. But that’s a bit extreme. We don’t even know where exactly they are and how many people they have. We don’t even know if what Simple’s saying is true. My bet would be to send a message back and prepare, and just keep going.”

“But if what Simp’s saying is true, then that’s our best option. It’s a no-lose situation; it’s better than screwing our home base and continuing on. We should at least attack them with the element of surprise.”  
“And I’ve done some calculations while you were talking,” Gregory added, “And if they keep their current pace and I’m not too deaf the laser’s sound will be about one or two meters away from us in about two minutes.”

Only two minutes and a meter or two away. What a coincidence, digging right next to each other…

“Do the Regulars have radar?” Mimz asked.   
“Well, I’m actually not so sure about that,” Gregory said nervously. “If they did, that’d be a good reason why they’re so close to us; because they want to attack. But if they’re just going to pass us then I’d say it’s a good chance they won’t.”

“Guys,” I said suddenly. “We don’t have time to argue further. We don’t have time. Let’s take a vote. Step forward if you want to attack, and stay back if you don’t.”

For a while, nobody moved and I almost groaned. But then, somehow in beautiful unison, the entire group moved forward.

We were dead silent. The Regulars were only a foot away from us. We could clearly hear them trudging along in the underground soil, their laser machine digging a perfectly smooth tunnel so they could sabotage us in our base back home. Not while I'm alive will the Regulars win this battle, I vowed. Never. We were hugging the right side of the tunnel, which was where the Regulars were. A constant rumble of Regulars. A continuous buzzing of the laser. We were about to snap like twigs, the tension was so high...

I waited until the source of the buzzing laser had just passed me. Nobody dared breathe.

Then, I held up three of my fingers.

Then two.

Then one.

“NOW!” I shouted in the top of my lungs, and in unison all of us shot a cannon straight though our tunnel wall and into the Regulars' tunnel, a much wider and smoother tunnel at first glance. But only a glance. The Regulars were so surprised that half of them jumped back and tripped over each other like dominoes. Some of us dug more to create some room, but most of us used the element of surprise to our advantage, shooting cannons and runes right away.

Fighting and summoning things underground is ten times worse than the sound of fighting on the surface. If I thought that normal battle was bad enough, then this was unbearable. I often fought while crouching because of the sheer noise; fortunately our surprise attack had been extremely helpful. I was afraid that the whole tunnel would cave in. Then neither side would win this battle.

Still, even with their handicap, the Regulars were fiercely holding their ground. I saw Tommato and Chesseo team dueling two Regulars whose names I do not know. Cannons collided against each other, a fury of black, a massive storm of night. How I had not been hit by a cannon yet I was still unsure; a lot of this was pure luck.

The scene was almost like the Matrix for me. I would do a limbo-like dodge and cannon behind me while doing so, grazing an unsuspecting Regular. I was not weak. I would not fail. I was the Leader. My cannons became increasingly faster, until I was at the point at which in a normal room back so long ago, I would be considered a hacker. All of my summons were fueled by rage, by anger and hate towards the Council who was responsible for me being stuck here and all of my friends' deaths.

I became almost godly. I simply let go. There is no better way to say it. The scrambling brown mass I surveyed was triaged into allies, enemies, and healers. Tree was shooting cannons and healing at the same time; Pom was healing; Homegood was also unleashing all of his fury; and all the other mice were battling furiously to the death.

A Regular tried picking me off from behind. A quick spirit deflect and a cannon-tipped javelin finished him off quickly, with no remorse. It was as if I had sharpened senses all over, and I could sense everyone, anywhere, anytime. It was the most peculiar feeling I had ever felt; it felt as if I was floating.

Shoot. Spirit. Dodge. Dodge, shoot. Shoot, dodge, spirit. What else is there to say? The battle unfolded, our side took losses, but their side took more. In the end, when we collapsed on the floor of the tunnel, only rebels and a Regular with a broken foot that we would take hostage were still alive. They had defended with all their power, but we had defeated them. Bodies were strewn all over the tunnel which had now transformed into a kind of arena from all the cannon abuse it had taken. Some bodies were run over by cannons, which had filled up quite a lot of room because these tunnels were in an enclosed space. I was surprised to see that almost all of us had made it through.

Two mice on our side were dead. I did not recognize them or their names. We held a silent funeral for them while we still had time, heads down and us paying our respects. Twill and Dexe were their names. More death, more guilt. When will it end?

Finally, we gathered all we could. We did not bother digging out of our own tunnel; we would simply take the Regular's tunnel which was conveniently dug out for us already. We were almost there. Many of our enemies would be waiting. But we were not alone.

**3**

Have you ever wondered what the meaning to life was?  
Sometimes, when I'm alone and I'm thinking to myself I do. I don't get why I was the one that had to be pulled from where I was, I'm not sure what my purpose was here and I don't know if I'll make it out of this alive. It seems that I have an invisible force field around me and when sometimes tries to kill me, one of my friends or someone I love would die instead. The guilt has always been there, but recently it's been rising up to the point where I want to scream and shout on the top of my lungs in rage and pent up frustration. Many times I've considered just giving up. But I realized that even if I just took my life now, it would make no difference. The declaration of independence made so long ago had already been made, and there was no turning back now lest we all become prisoners here in the Council's wrath and be tortured to death one by one.

Everything. The orb I touched, the feeling of being sucked in, being chased by that storm in the way beginning, the note to reach all three titles, the experience of Running and learning how to become a Shaman and learn all the Ways of Kerovan... Running with my friends (many of which were now dead, which only added to my despair), creating Rebellion, getting The Reaper and Quick Silver, Bootcamp, Racing... All of this came back to me with a startling surge that rushed in from some divine source. And it kept coming. I saw our tribe being burned down by the Regulars, our skirmishes, our declaration of independence, the battle of 801, and all of the events of the war that had followed. The first battles on the Mainland, Kongregate's island, the Volcano, the news of the orb and the riddle that followed, and finally our battles to the Creator's Isle.

The journey, in all, seemed like more than a year. And I realized that no, I could not just say things like that. You've gone so fucking far, you can't give up now. If you just drop it here, this war will spiral down for us and it will be all over. For the ones who died, the ones who want freedom and the ones who want this to be finished. I need to continue. With that thought, I walked with a brisker pace with Delta behind me.

Gregory made the last calculations. “A couple more meters and we should be right under their entrance when they came in.”  
Tree looked at me. “You ready?”  
I looked at her, and she looked at me. I didn't know what to do. We stared at each other for a while. But then, both of us instinctively held out our paws and squeezed each other's briefly. For reassurance. I smiled, then nodded. 

When we were a half meter away from the opening hole our pace slowed down to a creep. We didn't know what was up there, and we probably would have a lot of oppression. We had agreed , though, to not back down. We were going to attack from both directions, and hopefully our counterattack would be enough to bring down enough Regular forces to breach their main headquarters and head for the fabled orb. Time seemed to stretch indefinitely. 

Finally, I stopped abruptly when I noticed that above me was a fairly large opening. I could see the familiar blue sky of Transformice. I looked at the Delta group and nodded, pointing up. I held up three fingers. They got the message.

A quarter of us would go for the Regulars fighting on the main front (the Battlefield) and try to sandwich them. This was possible because of reinforcements. The rest of us would go straight for the Regular headquarters, and if the rebels fighting on the front lines were victorious they would join us there. All in all, it seemed like a good plan. 

We gathered around the opening, spirits in hand. I dropped a finger, leaving two. We got tense. 

I dropped another finger. One. Our paws were pointed at our feet, ready to jump and attack at a moment's notice. This was it.

I curled my paw into a fist, and in unison we shot our spirits and flew out of the opening into the field. Already I had made a swift transition to my rune in my left hand and a cannon in my right, and the rest of Delta had done the same.

But when I looked at our surroundings, my heart fell as if it were a 5-pound brick. There was no fighting. Everything was dead silent. 

“What's the meaning of this?” Chesseo asked me, whispering harshly.   
I only shook my head. On one side of the field where the main front was, there was only Regulars facing the other way toward us, and a larger mass of Regulars were on the other side towards headquarters, in a straight line. It reminded me of a firing squad. They weren't attacking, just staring us down as if this was expected.

“No...” I said out loud. “This couldn't be... this doesn't mean that...!”   
“Yes, what you think is true,” a Regular shouted from the headquarters side. He casually started to make his way for us. We stood still, not moving an inch. 

The mouse stopped three meters away from us, eyeing us down. “What you think is true,” he repeated. “It seems that you are the only rebels left.”


	17. The Creators

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Final chapter before the epilogue. The final showdown with the Creators and Simpleasthat's team.

**1**

If you’re reading this at all, if you’re still here, I just want to give my sincere thanks. I don’t know who might possibly be reading this. I just sent these papers out randomly through a Rune and some team spirits that sent this package of papers you’re reading pretty far down the ocean.

Anyways, a lot of time has passed. You, the reader, probably don’t know that; hell, you might have read this entire package in a matter of days. But the war between the Regulars and the rebels have gone on for months, and we were stuck in a pretty bad situation. None of the rebels from aboveground could be seen; some dead, most captured inside the Regular’s headquarters, no doubt. It’s been a couple weeks now, and I’m just going to belt this all out because I really, really need to just get all of this out of my head. This whole revolution; it blows my mind every time I think of it.

This is how the last week went down.

\---

The Regular that I now looked in the eyes was now all too familiar. I had seen him many times before; something told me that this may be the last.

“Redditguy,” I said with some disbelief.  
“Yes. It’s been quite a while since we last met, eh?” he said with a sinister smirk.  
“What are you going to do? We’re defenseless and surrounded. You say the word and we surrender. In fact, why not just kill us all?” I asked with slight annoyance.  
“Oh, it’s not up to you whether you surrender or not, I think. We’re forcing you to surrender, and it would be wise if you followed us into Headquarters.”

Headquarters? I thought. That was crazy. We’d been fighting for the past week to try and reach the headquarters, and so much had been sacrificed. Now we’ve basically lost the war and Redditguy and his squad are just giving us a free ticket inside?

“I don’t think this is going to end well,” Homegood whispered in my ear.  
“What trick are you trying to pull on us?” I asked Redditguy cautiously.  
“No tricks. In fact, the Creators want to see you. Have a few final words before we decide to do with the lot of you.”

I told tell the entire group was taken aback, and I was as well. “What...?”  
“You think I’m kidding? I’ll repeat myself. They want to see you.” He seemed a bit surprised. “Of course,” he added, “you won’t be able to use your Magik. We’re not that dumb.”

That made more sense, I decided. But still. This was insane.

\---

We were given these special cuffs. I don’t know the exact composition of the cuffs, but I could tell that it was a mix of V-type runes with some ominous-looking crystals that looked like it was generating artificial flames. How the hell do they get this stuff? I thought. I saw most of my team go through the entrance to the Regular headquarters. It seems like the crystals in the cuffs react to the sensors in the entrance and temporarily disable your Magik. It wasn’t a good thing for us, but I was still in wonder. You had to hand it to the Regulars.

What was more peculiar was that I was in no way afraid at that moment. Everything seemed to be obvious, like that was supposed to happen. It seemed as if I was meant to be some kind of center of positivity. It was a weird feeling. Anyways.

Homegood, Tommato, Vladsgirl, Pompomball, Chesseo. We led the pack, a silent mass of rebels that were defeated by the Regulars. The revolution would have some small flares and sparks here and there, sure. But the main flame was taken out. We were finished. And now there was nothing left to do but to voice our surrender to the Creators themselves. I tried hard not to chuckle; it was funny for some reason.

I couldn’t get over how nice the headquarters were aesthetically, however. Everything was pristine and clean, and there was nothing out of place. I saw advanced laboratories and machinery, with exceptional armories where I saw high-tech weapons that the Regulars didn’t even need to use, and so much more. Never until now had I realized how unmatched we were against this oppressive force. We’d actually thought that we could beat the Regulars.

Still though, my stride was brisk and my head was high. There seemed to be nothing to feel bad about. Others seemed to pick up on my optimism as well; some were smiling or carrying small smirks on their faces.

Finally, we reached a pair of doors that looked extremely complicated. Redditguy and some other moderators had to help him into unlocking the doors; and that was only the first layer “to a 5-set door lock system,” Redditguy had informed me. He seemed proud; I assumed that he designed this intriguing system.

The whole Delta team watched with anticipation. “Where are the other rebels?” I asked a Regular that seemed to have no emotion in his face whatsoever.  
“Downstairs, in the Den.” His reply was even more cold than his facial expression. I assumed that the Den was some kind of dungeon for prisoners of war. Something will have to be done about that, I thought. But we don’t have Magik...

We watched on. Regulars tapped into keys, attached Runes, spirited several levers, and used cannons on several areas of the door. It seemed like they knew how to open the system with ease, however. It seemed like second nature.

I could feel the tension in the group as each layer of the door was unlocked. Every time a layer was finished, the doors sank into the ground below. Eventually the Regulars were onto the fourth layer. One more to go.

I felt like I knew the answer. But I asked anyways.

“Reddit... what’s behind these doors?” I asked.  
He stopped what he was doing and looked at me with the slightest of smiles. “The Creators, of course.”

**2**

The fifth set of doors sunk underneath the ground, and hesitantly the group and I entered an enormous, circular room. It had all kinds of fancy decor such as the intricate wall design, the patterned tiling, and in the center of the room, the largest goddamn chandelier I’d ever seen. On the far side of the room there was a simple wooden desk, which was curiously juxtaposed to the grandeur of the chamber. Behind the desk were two simple chairs, almost crude. Two mice sat behind those chairs, which I could tell with no doubt were the Creators of the realm. Transformice.

Cautiously, I stepped forward past Redditguy and the other Regulars, who did not move. The other leaders in Delta moved up as well.

“Okay, I know that you’ve successfully taken all of us captive. I’m not dumb, and we humbly admit defeat. Now what do you want?” I asked with a small edge to my voice.  
“Well. If it isn’t the infamous legend that we’ve been hearing about all along,” spoke the male mouse. I figured his name was Tigrounette, the Creator in charge of maintaining order. His job was to make sure the realm was running smoothly. I believe he was also the chief director of weaponry.

“That would be me,” I said rather dumbly.  
“The rebel’s Leader. Simpleasthat. What a peculiar name, by the way,” Tigrounette remarked. “I’m actually genuinely disappointed your... antics had to come to a close this way.”  
“I’ll repeat myself. Let’s cut to the chase. What. Do. You. Want?” The tone of my voice was fiery now.

“I don’t need to rush things,” Tigrounette said with a chuckle. “I’ve been watching over you. Almost all the time, actually. You’ve been fighting the entire war under my supervision. Except the time you went underground on our humble island. But I knew you’d pop up somewhere, and I anticipated correctly. And all the other rebels are currently being interrogated. Painfully.” Melibellule, the female, seemed as if she couldn’t suppress a smile.

“You’re a horrible, evil, heartless bastard,” Chesseo said furiously, and spit on the floor. “You deserve to die a horrible death.”

“You annoy me,” Tigrounette replied simply. “You should take this little mouse to the Den where you belong anyways.”  
“Yes, Master,” some moderators said instantly and arrested Chesseo. With B-anchored runes, which wasn’t hard to break at all. But without Magik, he would be powerless against them.

“Chess...” I said, rather dumbly, again.  
“Don’t worry,” he whispered back. “Think of a plan and do it. You’re the Leader. You of all people can figure out something.”  
“Come along, prisoner,” the stone-faced moderator said, and prodded Chesseo in the back. “You’re going to the Den.”

Something told me the Den wasn’t a good place to be. Definitely a negative connotation.

I ignored Tigrounette’s further banter and examined the room. There must be a way to break out of here, I thought. I suddenly became analytical. I quickly scanned the room but found nothing. Besides, we had no magic. I looked at the chandelier, which was probably the only method of distraction. But how do we take it down? I glanced up at the chandelier and took a closer look...

...and almost shot up two feet in the air.

THE ORB! The orb we were all searching for! The orb that could break the Boundary and set all the rebels free! My heart began to race. It was attached snugly to the ceiling, but it was there. And it was glowing faintly. Yes, it must be it.

Melibellule seemed to catch on to my surprise. “You don’t have any Magik and won’t have any for a while. And we’ll keep restoring your bracelets when you do so that you can’t perform any sly tricks. I see you’re eyeing the Orb. Yes, Kerovan’s Orb. We put it up there recently when you arrived to the island so that you couldn’t do anything about it. And you can’t, so it’s good judgement by us.”  
I looked at her straight in the eye and said, “Shut the fuck up.”

**3**

A few Regulars glared at me for my remark. Melibellule simply waved at them to keep calm. 

“Who cares what you say now,” she sneered. “You’ll soon be dead. Along with the rest of your friends.”  
“Not on my watch,” Tommato whispered through his teeth.

I assessed my surroundings. The Orb was in the ceiling, out of reach unless I used Magik. But that wasn’t currently an option. The nearest escape route was through the five-layered door, which was now securely shut. I could perhaps escape through the thick windows, but they were at a high elevation. We seemed to be out of options.

I came to my senses. It couldn’t end like this, now could it? There has to be a way. I was the Leader as destined by Kerovan. There is always a way. 

And I thought back many months ago, back when I had read the Prophecy of Kerovan; 

Decades after Kerovan  
Shall be the time where need is great.  
Turmoil and rebellion will follow protests in its wake.  
But with just the Rebels there will be defeat  
And if only their hope will carry through the heat.  
Instead they must wait for a day to arrive  
Where hopes will be great and trust will lie  
On a lone mouse, that comes from the Border  
And will break the curse of the Creator's order.  
He, or she, will lead the way  
From utter defeat to a hopeful day  
Where the Boundary will break with the Leader's power  
And we will be free at last, on one fateful hour.

No. I shook my head. It was destined. It was the last Way of Kerovan. The Way of True Purpose. Suddenly, it became clear what I had to do.

I was the Leader. Only I had the power to break the Boundary and defeat the Creators. This was all meant to happen. Here, I had to break the bracelet’s spell and do what I had to do. Even if it meant sacrificing myself and my own life. 

Because that... was my true purpose. To give freedom. 

I closed my eyes and blocked out everything around me. I only heard echoes.

A few mumbles here and there, some shuffling. A shout. Probably from one of the Creators to take us to the Den.

I concentrated on my Magik. Time seemed to slow down indefinitely while I tried to figure this out.

I sensed that my Magik was there; it flowed throughout every cubic centimeter of my body. It was more alive than it ever was. But something was blocking it. There was a kind of barrier, or some kind of forcefield just outside my body. It kept the Magik at bay, and effectively blocked any attempts to attack or conjure. 

But it could be broken. 

I knew this because it was only made up of V-runes, which held everything together. Those runes had no effect on our ability to use Magik. It was the crystalline composition of the bracelets that acted as the forcefield. The runes were like the glue that held everything together. If I focused on the V-runes and severed the connection, the bracelet would dissolve and so would the forcefield that blocked my Magik.

It was like finding the right key to open a lock. My Magik inside me swirled into different forms, trying to find the right one that could break the rune. I was dizzy and lightheaded. I was half aware that what I was attempting was extremely difficult; to separate an anchor from an object itself was unheard of. I wasn’t even sure if it was done before. Even for master Shamans, this was a challenging feat. 

I vaguely remembered Chesseo telling me that trying to accomplish a feat that stretches outside of your purview of Magik could lead to fatality. “If you go too much beyond your limits of Shamaning, you can outwork yourself and even die.”

But I wasn’t ready to give up. I was a Leader, for cheeses’ sake. If I can’t do this right now, then we will lose. The war will be over, and the cause will be lost. The same old cycle of Running will happen over and over; forever. 

Unless I separate this...

...THIS ANCHOR! With a small jolt, the Magik in me seemed to flow through the runes on my wrist. With a small click, the anchor dissolved, and so did my bracelet. No one had noticed. 

With a small smile, I opened my eyes. I felt a peculiar sensation as my Magik began to pulsate within my body with surprising force. 

“Take them to the Den,” Tigrounette told the Regulars.

Stone Face put a hand on my shoulder. “We’re going.”

I whirled around, conjured a cannon, and shot it as hard as I could into his face.


	18. Epilogue

It’s been weeks, no, months… no, years since my last journal entry. So much has happened since then, and I’ve been working so hard and so long since our meetup with the Creators and the Regulars that I’ve almost forgotten how to put a pen on parchment and write letters and words, no less a coherent journal entry. Seeing as I still have so much to do, this will probably be my final entry.

I could just tell you straight up what happened after I summoned that Magik and started that fight in the Throne Room. I suppose you all could infer what happened; I’m still alive and I’m writing this, after all. Long story short, we won. However… our victory was not without cost.

I vaguely remember that battle. I always thought to myself that the final battle would be so monumental, so important that it would stay with me forever. But as the months went on, I realized that I cared less and less about the past and more about what the future would bring. In the end, there was only me and the entire rebel army against the two Creators; Meli and Tig. That battle went on for hours, going through the day and well into the night. I won’t bore you with all the details, the details you’ve no doubt heard and read many times before. The thing was, we defeated the Regulars. I’m not exactly sure how. I realize that there is a quality to a mouse’s inner self that he or she can’t really explain; it’s a drive that goes past all prior knowledge and common sense that you may have had before, and just gives you an uncontrollable burst of adrenaline that empowers a mouse to do extraordinary things.

I guess the shorthand for that is hope. We all had that. That’s how we won.

I remember Tigrounette facing me with an ice cold glare. Dead bodies from both sides were strewn all throughout the room. My closest friends were beside me, panting, shedding blood and sweat from wounds and exhaustion. I was the same. I myself was injured with a severe laceration to my right torso, and I clutched it now as the blood slowly seeped from the wrapped bandage, circumferenced around my torso, and dripped to the floor.

I stared back. I gave him the meanest, most vengeful glare I could ever give someone. It was the polar opposite of Tigrounette. He watched me stoically with an expression of ice. I, on the other hand, was seething with rage, flames engulfing my thoughts.

With a low, sinister tone to my voice, drawing out the word extra long for effect, I uttered, “You…”

Tigrounette said nothing, and his expression remained unchanged. Melibellule shifted in her seat.

“You…” I said once again. “You are going to die today.”

Tigrounette said nothing, but the expression on his eyes changed. The sharp, cold look had faded away and was replaced with a look of uncertainty. Finally, he said, “You’ve defeated my entire army. Transformice and the Realm has been destroyed. All that’s left between you and destroying the forcefield is us.”

“You won’t stand a chance. We outnumber you a hundred to one.”

“Then what are you doing already? Fight me, and get it over with!”

With a yell, I charged towards the bastard, a cannon already forming in my paws, ready to deliver the fatal blow. Suddenly, Tigrounette got up from his seat and started to conjure something. Another cannon. I noticed that I was the only one that had charged; the rest of the army, including my friends, had stayed back, almost like an unspoken acknowledgement that this final Magik was to be done by me, and only me.

“For the orb!” I yelled, and released the power. Tigrounette did the same, and our cannons, infused with Magik, collided with a brilliant flash of light. I was blinded, and my entire vision faded to white. I felt myself falling like a feather, slowly but inevitably, and I finally hit the ground with a soft thud. My vision, still filled with while, turned to gray and then black.

\---

“Wake up, you doofus,” someone said softly next to my ear. With a jolt, I opened my eyes and looked to my right to see Pom, laughing with the others. The army was all gathered around me.

“How long was I out?” I asked to noone in particular.

“Oh, a couple minutes,” Polygone told me with a smirk. “That was quite the dramatic ending back there.”

I laughed. “It was pretty cool, though.”

“It was,” said Tommato.

We went silent for a moment. I finally said, “So… we won?”  
“Sure did,” Chesseo quipped. “I think all the bad guys are… gone. I can’t see any Regulars around for miles.”

“Well, I can’t see any rebels for miles but us, either,” said Keith, which made us all go silent.

I said cautiously, “...are we all that’s left?”  
Polygone said, “As far as I know… yeah. Like, eighty of us. There are still a couple hundred mice who are on Mainland and who knows how many rebels are still scattered about the Rooms, struggling to survive.”

Eighty. I couldn’t believe it. “We… we started with three hundred.”

Silence. “The cost of victory,” Pom said quietly.

All those mice died for the cause. They died willingly and gladly because they knew they were fighting for their freedom.

“Fuck this war,” I said. “Be right back.” I started walking towards the center of the Battlefield.

“Where are you going?” a few voices said. I didn’t answer. I had one thing to do before anything else.

Careful not to step over strewn bodies, whether it be rebel or Regular, I made my way to the Battlefield.

I raised my hands and closed my eyes. Dawn was arriving, and I could feel the early morning’s slight breeze on my face. I took a few deep breaths and concentrated.

Even when a mouse has passed away, I can still feel their presence. I’m not sure if I believe in ghosts, but this is the closest thing I can describe as being one. I can’t see them. I can’t even hear them. But I sense them. I extended my consciousness, expanding my radius, sensing more and more bodies whether it be Regular or rebel, until I couldn’t handle any more. I sensed hundreds of bodies. Physically, they were lifeless and limp, but I could sense that they all had souls. Smiling, I whispered to them, “be free,” and released my energy.

I opened my eyes and saw all the bodies around me start to glow. In the distance, the eighty-man army gravitated towards the Battlefield, noticing what I was doing and observing in wonder. I lowered my arms, releasing all the souls I had sensed from my consciousness, and watched the bodies glow blue, then disappear into thin air. I let out a sigh of relief and laughed. I don’t know where those souls went, but I knew that they were free to travel wherever they wanted. It’s one of those things that I can’t really explain. It’s just Magik you can’t control, Magik that surpasses anything that could ever be conjured within the game or the Realm. It just happens.

The group, seeing as the phenomenon was over, came over to me. “What the hell was that!” Chesseo exclaimed. I shrugged and everyone laughed.

We talked amongst ourselves for a while, then I said, “Come on, guys, we’ve still got that orb sticking from the ceiling that we completely forgot about.”

\---

(This was taken from an earlier work of mine, from a collab with Cocoa. -JK)

(JK does not mean that I’m kidding. Those are my initials. -JK)

I held the orb in my hands, not knowing what to do. It glowed with a slight blue haze. I was speechless; I could not do anything, just held the object in my hands. Inside Kerovan’s orb was a swirling yellow matter; I knew that it was activated by the Gold Magik that was now inside me. I hesitated. I looked out in the distance, where the Boundary lay, barely visible. I looked towards my friends, my comrades, and my supporters in front of me. They only watched, waiting, not saying a word.

How I had escaped, I did not know. How I had managed to fight through this war, and gain possession of this object; it may have just been sheer luck. Fate was stacked on my side. I took a deep breath. I channeled the Magik through me, and the blue markings that I was covered in slowly changed into a glimmering gold. I felt the surge of energy go through me.

But this time it was different. It was more powerful than any other surge that I had ever experienced before. The Magik filled every single part of me. It lived in me. It was my entire being. I became the Magik as I concentrated on one thing, and one thing only.

The blue haze of the orb shimmered, and then grew brighter and brighter. Sparks of yellow and blue danced around the orb, but it did not harm me. The yellow matter swirled faster and faster as it became a whirlwind of energy and life. I held on. The orb grew brighter and brighter, and it enlarged to become bigger and bigger. Soon it was the size of a cannonball. The group facing me backed off, cautious of what was to happen.

The pressure and energy built up inside the orb became enormous. I tried with all my power to hold the energy in. By now, the light and sparks had become so powerful that it was pure white. The ground rumbled, the earth shook, and still the orb went faster and faster. It rose out of my hands and spun so violently that it made a small tornado that whipped against my face.

And then the climax came. The orb’s light suddenly burst out of the orb, and in all directions it shot across the sky. The sky was now a brilliant burst yellow, white, and blue; the light was so bright that I squinted and had to close my eyes.

The energy gathered itself, now a single, enormous mass of Golden Magik, and then separated at light speed, rocketing away from us.

“Where is it going?” asked Tree.

“I think,” said Unity, “that the Boundary is opening.”

It was going to happen.

The Boundary was far away, but we could still see it from a distance. A blue force field, stretched in the shape of a rectangle throughout the entire realm of Transformice. But now the golden energy made its way across the now blue ocean to the Boundary. Without hesitation I saw it collide with the field, and a great boom and sparks flew out in every direction.

The chain reaction was instantaneous. We covered our ears to muffle the resonating booms that sounded because of the Gold Magik interfering with the Boundary. Silently we watched as the Boundary wore away, a thick wall at first but slowly wearing away, becoming weaker and weaker until finally it dissolved.

The Boundary was no more.

The booms stopped. The orb dropped to the floor and rolled until Homegood stopped it. Nobody spoke for what seemed like an eternity. Then, finally, Sabusha spoke.

“Is the Boundary… is it gone?”

“It’s gone all right,” I said. “Transformice is open and free.”

\---

Alright, back to the present. So, a lot of what I’ve been doing for these months was going around the different islands, including the familiar Kong and Mainlands, rounding up stragglers and spreading the good news. A bunch of mice have already set out beyond the boundary, exploring beyond the Realm that we’ve all known for so long. Disappointingly, we didn’t find any portals that took us back to our true home like the ones we took to came here. The lot of us are optimistic that if we venture out far enough, however, we’ll find a way to get home. They’re calling it the land of Rye for some reason. Hell if I know why.

Things have been looking good. Some of us have decided to build a couple settlements here. We’ve completely reworked the Realm into our own free world. It reminds me a lot like home. Mouse civilization is starting over.

I can’t believe all of this started with me being sucked here to play a stupid ‘game’. Where there were ‘firsts’ and ‘cheese’ and ‘saves’ and all that other crap. Life lesson: games don’t amount to anything. You’ve got to take yourself outside the game and live the real world for yourself.

We’ve even made our own government, but it really isn’t because there aren’t any elected officials or anything. Everyone gets together on certain dates and just talks about any important news or issues. It’s the best kind of government, I think, as long as everyone’s peaceful and content. So far, so good.

I feel like all I’d known was war years ago. I completely forgot all those good times where I learned how to wall jump or conjure objects by my friends. I forgot all about the anvil god and all those other events way back when. I feel like I don’t mention all the people that have helped me through this thing enough. So, you know, if you’re reading this (and you’re not dead), just know that I’m thankful, and I really do mean it.

I don’t blame the Regulars. They didn’t know any better. The only two people I blame are the Creators and the Council. And now that they’re gone, things have only been looking up. We’re free.

The biggest thing that’s coming up right now is the main expedition of traveling outside the Boundary. It’ll be huge. There have been a couple early birds that left before us like I said, but this ship is huge. There’s going to be hundreds of mice on board. Just building this ship took a year, I think. But I’m really looking forward to it.

You know, I’ve been asked a bunch of times to just stay here inside the Realm and be the mice’s leader. To be honest, after months of seeing our progress and hard work that went into rebuilding civilization, I want to stay here. The conditions here are certainly better than home, and besides, I know this place a lot better than my homeland now anyway.

But I had to decline. I did all this because I wanted to go home. And so my quest continues.

Oh, and the lava turned back into water a long time ago. Thought I forgot that the Creators did that cruel trick on us, did you?

Well, we’re just doing final inventory checks before we head out and explore the unknown. Wish me luck. I’m not expecting a perfect journey. There’s bound to be ups and downs, celebrations and crises. Still, we did get through an entire war with the chips stacked against us the entire time. I’m pretty sure we’ll be alright.

Oh, darn. Someone’s calling for me. Gotta go.

It’s been fun.

This will probably be the last time you’ll be hearing from me. But hey, you never know. It’s a small world.

**the end**


End file.
